Forte

I figured my Sniper guide went well enough to write a second guide for my second most played class, the Engineer. The Engineer's weapons, thanks to lack of an update, are basic and don't even really need to be covered, but playing a good Engineer isn't always something people seem to be able to do.First things first, let's go over basic Engineering guidelines. Your Buildings:Your buildings are your main source of kills, help, and defense for your team. For some reason, many Engineer players I see will build their buildings by letting them autobuild. Perhaps it's just not generally known, but hitting your buildings or the buildilngs of other Engineers with your wrench will build them twice as fast. The effect stacks, too, so if you're helping a buddy build his building, it'll build twice as fast. As a note, build times are as follows (without wrench):Sentry: 10 SecondsDispenser: 20 SecondsTeleporter Entrance and Exit: 20 Seconds.This means that a Sentry with two Engineers at it will build in 3 seconds. Even by yourself, your sentry will build in 5. That's a huge difference. Now on to discussing the buildings in general. I would discuss the sentry, but it's pretty self explanatory. All of the buildings are self explanatory, really, so instead discussing the buildings themselves, I'll talk about the order in which you should build them. The real big question is: How secure is your location? If you're confident in the location and don't see much of a threat coming your direction, then it's reasonable to build your Dispenser first, as that'll provide you with plenty of metal for your future buildings. If it's looking dangerous, it's almost a necessity to build your Sentry first, in order to protect not only yourself, but your newly built Sentry. Normally, the best course of action is to build your Sentry and collect enough metal to build a Dispenser, then begin to level up your buildings from there, but it's all, once again, a matter of where you're at and how well protected it is. Helping your fellow Engineers is a big part of being an Engineer, too. If you go to a location where you see one of your fellow Engineers building his Sentry, as long as it's not in a ridiculous or useless place, help them build up the Sentry and level it up if you have the resources instead of building up your own. Two level 1 sentries are nothing compared to one level 2, and especially not a level 3. Before you even leave your base, it's always a good idea to build a teleporter entrance. If you're playing on a map that allows teleporters to be built inside the base, take advantage of that, as it means no enemy spies popping out of your teleporter. On the same note, if you're able to build teleporters inside of your base, don't build teleporters that lead INTO your base, as that's just asking for spawn killing spies (The only maps I know of that allow buildings to be built in the base are Orange_X, Orange_X3, and Orange_Cross, but I've not played on every map ever made). So where is it that you should build your buildings? Wherever the objective is at the time - Need to protect the intel? Build a sentry in the intelligence room. Your team capped the point? Build at the point before the other team can cap it back. This leads on to the next thing - Dispensers.Your dispenser is a strange item. It's extremely helpful to you, and at the same time, it's extremely helpful to your team. So the question comes up - do you build my Dispenser for your team, or do you build my Dispenser for you? The answer isn't always easy, and it isn't really easy to find a middle ground. For the most part, it's a matter of teamwork. Are you the only Engineer? If so, your Dispenser has to be used for everyone, so building it in a place that's easy to get to and from is important. If you're not the only Engineer, it's easier to leave your Dispenser somewhere while you move everything else. It's important to remember that when you move your Dispenser, you should alert your team to its new whereabouts, since in some larger maps, it's easy for people to lose you. As an Engineer, your worst enemies are Spies and Demomen, and the occasional Medic-Heavy/Soldier team. Unfortunately, aside from Spies, there's not much you can do to pick off your enemies, so you'll have to rely on your team to help you out. Whenever a Spy comes around to sap your buildings, remember to get the sapper off of your Sentry first, since that way, if the Spy succeeds in killing you, at least he dies as well. It's worth a shot to attempt to kill the spy, either with your wrench or shotgun, but don't neglect your buildings. If you can, get backup from teammates to help remove the spy. A good strategy is to ask your teammates to show that they're real by firing their weapon before coming over to your Dispenser. As long as your team does as you asked, you'll be able to pick out Spies extremely easily. Helpful Hints:Since the Spy update, your Teleporters are sapped from both ends at once, so if you're at the other end of a fellow Engineer or your own teleporter, you can unsap both of them.Look for places you can build your Sentry without there being any openings that it could be shot at without it returning fire. The most excellent places for this are in corners behind a door or behind walls near Control Points. Your Wrench has a high crit rate on Spies. Use that.When you're not building things or repairing them, scout the area and spycheck. You can easily get on top of your Sentries and Dispensers by jumping and crouching at the same time. From here, it's harder to be backstabbed.

So I see these guides around here for TF2 classes, and figured that since I'm a good Sniper, I may as well try writing up a guide for him. You may be thinking, "Well, sniping is as easy as camping and shooting" but being benefit to your team is much more complicated than that.First off, let's start up with the basics. The Sniper's weapons. If you're playing without the unlocks, your lineup is pretty generic:Sniper Rifle: A typical long range rifle with a scope and laser sight that look like they were tacked on quickly and unprofessionally.How to use it: The longer you stay scoped in, your weapon gets a charge. When it hits 100%, a body shot on Scouts, opposing Snipers, Spies, Medics, and Engineers will kill in one hit. A 100% headshot on anything will kill instantly, even a Heavy being currently charged by a Medic (excluding invincibility ubercharge). Despite popular belief, it is slightly stronger even if it doesn't hit 100%, so sometimes if you don't have the time to let it get to 100%, you can take out a Heavy, Soldier, Demoman or Pyro with just one headshot, though normally a headshot will simply leave them with +/-25 HP.Sub-Machine Gun: A quick shooting and slightly weaker gun, great for close range.How to use it: The SMG is actually much more powerful than you might think, especially when it hits random crits. In the event that you start firing and it crits on the first few shots in your clip, you'll be firing an entire clip of crits, which is great no matter who you're shooting at. It's best used to take out Scouts who have flanked you (if you notice them on time), Pyros who have rushed you, or Spies who didn't quite get that backstab. The gun isn't exactly that accurate, even at closer range, so it's up to you to keep it on track.The Kukri: A bushknife, and not much else.How to use it: The Kukri, like the Bonesaw, has a pretty high crit rate, and decent reach. I'm not much of a melee Sniper, but whenever I have to use it, I normally come out victorious. It's normally better to use the knife on Spies who missed a backstab/you saw coming, since they're going to, in 90% of the cases, continue trying to score a backstab (lol facestab) on you instead of retreat firing their revolver. Because of the high crit rate, you'll most likely end up killing the Spy (as a rule of thumb now, watch out for Dead Ringer spies by spraying the area with the SMG [if you're using it] after killing a Spy).Sniper's unlocks: Unlike the classes before him, the Sniper's update didn't include a melee update, and instead included a Primary and two Secondary updates. The Huntsman: A Bow complete with arrows. Named after Australia's most famous spider.How to use it: The Huntsman is a strange weapon, and kind of defeats the purpose of even being called a Sniper. It's less accurate at long ranges, but very capable of being used from far away, but more suited for close range "sniping". A successful headshot kills most things, and if whatever you shot is close to a wall, they'll be ragdolled and pinned to the wall, which is just a funny bonus to having the Huntsman. It takes some getting used to, as holding the arrow in place too long will make your shot inaccurate, but not holding it long enough will cause the shot to fall short of its target. Personally, I'm not much for the use of the weapon, but, personal opinion matters a lot in this game.The Razorback: A homemade shield that protects from one backstab. Very obviously homemade.How to use it: This is one of the few, if not the only, passive weapons in the game. You don't have to turn it on to get it to work, or have it selected, it simply sits there. In the event that a Spy attempts to backstab you, you'll be protected and the spy will be stunned for a moment. For what it's worth, the SMG is better than this. By far. A Sniper's best bet is to simply turn your volume up a bit, so that you can hear spies uncloak near you, and to pay attention to everything else around you when you're not scoped in. That temporary paralysis on the Spy isn't going to last an inattentive sniper long enough anyway, so a new/unskilled player using the Razorback to protect them is a moot point.Jarate: A jar of piss. Yet another obviously homemade item that the Sniper has. How to use it: Jarate is by far the strangest weapon ever incorporated into a game. Though I personally do not prefer it, Jarate is useful to you and your teammates, and would be much, much more useful if you could keep your SMG while using it. After throwing it, upon impact with anything, it explodes and slings a blast of piss everywhere. Anyone caught within the radius of the explosion is colored in yellow and their vision is slightly impaired. After being "hosed down", every hit they take is automatically a mini-crit, so whatever is covered in it will probably die soon, especially if another Sniper with the SMG starts shooting. Jarate is also capable of putting out teammates who are on fire. The downside to Jarate is that you can only get another one upon respawn or by visiting a supply cabinet, and of course, the greatest downside - you lose your SMG.Your job as a Sniper:The Sniper is set up with the last three characters in the support category, and indeed, your job is to support. However, despite how most people do it, you aren't sniping just to counter-snipe, there's more important things going on than just killing the other team's Snipers. It's important to keep your eyes out for Heavy-Medic teams, or just Medics in general. Getting them out of the way whenever you see them is an important step in keeping your Engineer outposts in one piece, because if the Medic ubercharges the Heavy, especially with the normal Medigun, your team's Sentries, Teleporters, and Dispensers amount to *BLEEP*. It's also a good idea to take out enemy Engineers and their Sentries/Dispensers before they become a problem to the rest of your team. For added fun, find out where enemy engineers have built a teleporter and snipe everyone that pops out of it. Aside from spies, you'll cripple most of the team's activities until the Engineer destroys the teleporter and builds it somewhere else, or, in the rare case, the entire team gets wise to the fact that no one's killing you and stops using it.Your mortal enemy as the Sniper is the Spy, and to a lesser extent, the Scout. I've already discussed how to take care of both of these close up, but at a distance it's a different story. Scouts normally know you're on to them and run around in odd patterns. The best way to get a headshot on them is to simply focus on one spot and not try to move with them. It's way too hard to keep up with a Scout, so following predictable moves is much easier and should result in success. Spies, on the other hand, can't be seen half the time. If you do see a Spy cloaking, shoot in the general area you think he's in or attempt to shoot him while you can still see him. It's worth one wasted shot to maybe hit him. If you're dealing with new spies or overall lame spies, seeing your team come from the enemy spawn is a good reason to shoot at them. Pay attention to any "teammates" coming your way when there's no real reason to come over to your location. Since they won't expect you to know them as a spy, take a shot at their head. If it doesn't kill, they're on your team. The Demoman and Soldier pose very little threat to you as a Sniper, since Soldiers aren't really able to hit you from that far away, and their rockets are easy to sidestep. As a rule of thumb, Demomen never have much HP, and a headshot should take them out, sometimes even a bodyshot. If you see one fresh from spawn, get a headshot on him anyway, he'll probably end up blowing himself up. Less threat to your team. Pyros are a pain sometimes, since their 175 HP make them a challenge to kill. If one rushes you, switch to the SMG and retreat. If you're lucky, you'll get their HP low enough that they retreat or you kill them, and if you're extremely lucky, you'll get backup from anyone else around you.Useful tips:Stick close to Sentries, this discourages Spies from outright stabbing you. If they begin to sap, you'll certainly hear that, and can even help your Engineer friend. Keep your back to a wall.When you make a kill, change location. That way enemy Snipers can't countersnipe, and spies sent to look for you won't get an easy kill. Occasionally spycheck, it'll keep you alive longer. Don't be on Team Sniper. If someone needs your help, you have the weapons to lend it to them.

That guide's a bit out of date, since the Sandman doesn't take your double jump anymore, but instead takes a bit of HP (I think 25, not sure, I don't use it.)Overall, I'm an ok Scoot. I'm not great, just ok, and I agree with everything I've read. Personally, I hate using the FaN and I definitely hate Bonk!, and since the Sandman takes your HP away, I can't see myself using it ever. Generally, I hate using the unlockable weapons for all the classes, aside from the Medic's Bludsauger and Ubersaw, and the Spy's Ambassador and Cloak and Dagger. All the rest are seriously lacking in usefulness, and in the case of the Pyro, make you insanely useless to your team.

Of course I know that there is a Punch Out!! for the Wii, and from what I hear, it's good. Your idea of the Wii bringing families together is a bunch of garbage. If your direct family doesn't so much as play a board game together every once in a while, there's no way the lot of you are going to get together and play on the Wii. To think that a little white box is going to change that is foolish. Of course, I'm not saying it can't happen, but it's highly unlikely. And I'm not even mad about the Wii because of it attempting to bring new gamers in. It's the lack of support for the true gamers that actually like Nintendo. It's the lack of true innovation. The Wii remote was not innovative. It's a wireless mouse, in its purest form, and interacts with the Wii in a way no more complicated than a television remote. Do you know how long the television remote has been around? Ages. I've had both a TV remote and a wireless mouse for most of my lifetime, the only innovation the Wii brought about was sticking them together, a previously useless fusion. The games are no longer truly great, the graphics have become better and the music has begun to sound richer and clearer (I'll refrain from using "better" as I feel that 8-bit video game music is god tier), but the overall feel is nothing compared to those classic games which, if you look at the Japanese names for the NES and Super NES, were for the family (talking about Famicom and Super Famicom, Famicom being a shortened form of Family Computer). The Wii was indeed made for bringing casual gamers into the market, but a truly good system should be able to do that while still attending its true gamer fanbase. The Wii has failed to do such a thing, and until it does, it will be a failure, no matter what sales say.

The true Illuminati was founded quite some time ago, actually, by a man named Johann Adam Weishaupt. According to one of my sources, he was very interested in joining the freemasons, and eventually did. He was later kicked out after it was revealed that his ultimate goal was to take control of the brotherhood, and use it as he saw fit, this on top of the recent discovery that he was an atheist (one must proclaim the belief in some divine entity to remain in the freemasons). His main purpose was to attempt to overthrow the world as it was, abolishing all forms of government and all religions to create his own New World Order. There are still people who will say that they are part of the Illuminati, or, "The Enlightened Ones" and there are many who confuse them with the Freemasons, simply because they are yet another secret society. Weather or not the ultimate goal of the Illuminati is to create a New World Order is questionable, but their existence is nowhere near powerful enough to do such a thing

From what I've seen, your starter pokemon will follow you around, just like Pikachu did in Yellow. The graphics are overall very diamond/pearl/platinum like, and the overworld is pseudo-3D. It'll most likely have WiFi and probably interact with Diamond/Pearl/Platinum as it if were one of them. Of course, personally, I can't stand a pure remake. I'll be needing a bit of extra content if I'm to buy it, so here's hoping for more of what made Gold and Silver great...

All of us are quite familiar with our keyboards, some of us more than others, of course, but for the most of us, there are two keys on it that we've found no use for, nor can we even begin to find it. These two keys are (at least, on American keyboards) the Scroll Lock key, and the Pause Break key.Let's start with Scroll Lock. Scroll Lock is a remnant of earlier computers and their programs, providing a way to lock all scrolling functions in a given program, mostly for convenience, especially with the Arrow Keys. It has a status light associated with it, just like the more important and frequently used Caps Lock and Number Lock keys, which on most keyboards is the one on the farthest right. Usage for the key has gone down over the years, as currently the only programs that truly give it any functionality are Microsoft Excel and FL Studio. It has other uses, aside from its original function to lock the scroll feature, playing a part in voice recognition software in the Opera web browser, and in DOS it will pause the screen, ironically, just like the Pause Break.Pause Break has its roots in extremely old technology, as it was originally a function on telegraph machines, in which it would pause, or break, the signal, indicating that the operator was about to begin transmission of information, or the line was down. Teletype procedures called for the continuation of this function, but as time went on, the use dwindled to almost nothing. Pause Break will now, in some programs, pause the loading of the program. Otherwise, it's completely useless in modern day applications.

Quite a hot topic in the video gaming community right now, the long awaited remakes of Gold and Silver have been announced in Japan. The rumor from a few months ago was that Nintendo put copyright on the names "Dawn Gold" and "Dusk Silver", and finally that rumor has been brought to reality in the form of "Heart Gold" and "Soul Silver", the new official names for the games' Japanese release, both are of course, coming out for the DS. I know that it's been a pretty big thing amongst fans of the series to want Gold and Silver remade in the same way as Red and (strangely enough) Green, and I'll admit, Silver was great, but being released so soon after they released the stereotypical "third game" (Platinum in this case, where it was first Yellow and Crystal to Emerald) seems like a bad idea, even if it'll take the rest of the year to be out in Japan. What we know now is pretty limited, but I'm hoping that they'll reveal some pretty big info about this, especially including its extra features and things to make it that much better than Diamond, Pearl, and Platinum, outside of just being a remake of the most popular Pokemon games to be made. So, what do you think?

Nintendo has become a steaming failure in recent years, and it's all the fault of the Wii. I own one of course, believing the lie of how it would bring about a revolution in gaming, but Nintendo's actions this generation have been terrible. Let's look back to when I was two. For Christmas, I was given an NES with about 14 games. The very first one I played, at the suggestion of my step brother was Super Mario Bros. I adored it, and at the young, young age of two, I was able to make it all the way to the first castle. As time progressed, I got better, and less afraid of Bowser, and eventually I rescued the princess some three years later. Along with Super Mario, I played the very first Legend of Zelda, though I wasn't able to get very far in it at first. These games were introduced to a two year old, and he was still able to play them and enjoy them, despite their difficulty that still draws him to them today. At the age of 6, I was given a Nintendo 64 for Christmas, the year it came out. I also got a Super Nintendo and Super Mario RPG. Even though I was still young, these games provided decent challenge that I was able to overcome. They're still hard today, and in some cases, I haven't played them in so long, I'm a bit worse at them . Time progressed and I played more and more games, eventually finding myself to care the most for genres such as Adventure, Puzzle, and RPG. No matter what, these games always challenged me, and I loved playing them. Their stories never failed to impress me, and the gameplay was never short of amazing. Of course, being raised on the NES, I've never cared at all for graphics, so such a thing never crossed my mind and it still hasn't. Thanks to Nintendo's wonderful consoles and handhelds, I quickly began to love the great music in these games, and the interesting sprites, along with the personalities of the characters that reccurred. Now, we have the Wii. A console that was originally named the "Revolution", promising a stunning revolution in the way we play games. Shame that it was a completely backwards revolution. The games are all terribly uninventive, most of them aren't even a challenge, and for certain there are none made for the true gamer who has been gaming his entire life, such as myself. Of course, at first I believed it to be a good thing, for Nintendo to make these games for the casual gamers, maybe even make a true gamer out of one or two of them, but as time went on and the shovelware piled up, it was obvious that Nintendo had found their new market - casual games for casual gamers, neglecting completely the people who had supported them for all of these years. Of course, the Wii has one or two decent games on it, but even Twlight Princess, a Legend of Zelda game, is too easy. Metroid Prime 3 was pathetic compared to the first two, in both length and difficulty. I was done with that game within a week's time, whereas I still have not beaten Prime 2, albeit mostly out of frustration with not being able to beat the final boss. The outlook for Nintendo looks pretty grim, to me, mostly because they're going to be considered nothing more than a shovelware company, and when their casual market declines, so will they.

I'm not quite sure what you're trying to say... are you perhaps referring to Tesla's studies in wireless energy transfer? To my knowledge and all of my searches, there is no word "inalambric".If you are talking about wireless energy transfer, it's quite fascinating. Tesla's studies were simply radio, of course, and while it was a huge hit then, radio is nothing to us now. Your facts about Edison being able to snuff out this study are slightly incorrect. For one, yes, Edison and Tesla became rivals, each promoting his electricity views, Edison pushing the Direct Current idea, and Tesla researching his Alternating Current. Their constant battles over these two systems nearly bankrupted both of them.Of course, it's not to say that Edison Labs didn't dish out their share of low blows, as they did steal a few of Tesla's patents while he was working under them, but that was the America of the time.It'll make you quite glad to know that in 2008, Intel did some research and reproduced one of Tesla's experiments and powered a light bulb with 75% efficiency, all wirelessly, which to me is wonderful. Nikola Tesla was indeed one of the greatest minds to ever live, and his inventions weren't truly overlooked. They changed the world, and will continue to do so as we use our current technology to build on his dreams.

Ah. This is quite interesting, but it happens with various creatures that live in the water for at least part of their lives, as I'm sure many have heard of it raining frogs before. It has an easy to explain explanation, as well, at least from what I've heard.Apparently, as water is condensed into clouds, it takes the small eggs with it. Since clouds are 100% water, the eggs never think they've left their environment, and they grow naturally. Being part of the cloud, they're supported by the flow of the air and the water around them, and occasionally it's possible for live fish to be living in the clouds, though they're most likely much smaller than depicted in that picture. A small fish that's light enough would most likely have the air resistance to live as it fell to the ground, especially if it were to be helped out by water. Of course, the idea of eggs being incorporated into the simple water cycle seems a bit far-fetched to me, even though I was told the cause by reasonably trustworthy sources. If it's not that, then it's anyone's guess as to what truly causes it to happen.

I'm not personally using 7, as I don't think my six year old computer would do it justice, but I do plan on having it on the next computer I get, and if it isn't out by the time I get a laptop (going to college, certainly need one), I'll simply have to get the Release Candidate. I've prescribed 7 to two of my friends as a fix to a laptop running Vista and a computer with a crippling virus, both times I received excellent feedback about how it installs all of the drivers by itself, no matter what, and that it overall works even better than XP, which in my eyes has been the ultimate OS. Needless to say, I look forward to using 7 when I upgrade next, and hope that it doesn't fail to impress me as much as it has my friends.

Hi. I've been here for quite a while, and I've only just now decided to ask for people to review my website... at least, I think I haven't asked for it yet. If you would like to visit, which I guess you'll need to do in order to tell me how I'm doing, the link is http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/. Now for a little history and info on my site. I started it back in January of 2006 and recently celebrated (if you can call it that) its third anniversary. It started out under the selfish premise of simply hosting my comics, with little substance other than that, but as time went on, I knew that I had to offer more in order to truly say that I had a website, and not just a silly little place on the internet where I keep my comics. I took it upon myself to learn HTML, which I did in about three days, and switched over my freewebs account from web builder mode to HTML mode, soon after doing this however, I left freewebs for better hosting. Time did its thing, and kept marching on, seeing my interests grow from just making cheesy comics to making sprites, and most recently, even wallpapers and cursors. As I became more and more attuned to making sprites, I joined in many a spriting community, mostly within the much larger MegaMan Community. During my time with these other spriters and other MegaMan fans, I noticed that of everything, the community lacked true community, the focus remained on the series itself, not the fans and their works. Spriting sites have always been much more about official sprites than the fanmade ones, and overall, the community seemed to turn a cold shoulder to the creative voices within it. This is, of course, not to say that every time you tried to be creative you were shot down, but there just wasn't a site built around fan involvement. It was then that I decided what my site should be - that place that instead of caring at all about the official works, we look at what the fans are able to do. Of course, it's kind of hard to be that one small voice amongst the towering giants that have already established themselves as the figureheads of the community, and as such, all of the things that rely on user interaction have seen little use. Most of the things that I had dreamed of, having large galleries full of custom made sprites, comics, backgrounds and wallpapers, are instead bare, as I can only do so much. While the site ranks fairly high amongst others, it has the potential to be better, from my point of view. Now, it's your turn. Tell me what you think of what I have here. Where could I do better? Should I change things up in one section? All of the sections? Please, any comments and constructive criticism are welcome.

I'd do it a little more like this: #include <iostream> using namespace std; int gcd(int m, int n) { if(n == 0) return m; else gcd(n, m % n); } void reduce(int &num, int &denom) { int divisor = gcd(num, denom); num /= divisor; denom /= divisor; } int main() { int num = 0, denom = 0; cout << "Enter the numerator: "; cin >> num; cout << "Enter the denominator: "; cin >> denom; reduce(num, denom); cout << "The reduced fraction is " << Num << "/" << Denom << endl; return 0; } A few things to note: - you had a few lines without a semicolon that really needed one. - C++ headers don't end in .h, and the line "using namespace std;" should be used afterwards. - functions, if statements, and loops that contain more than one line of code need to have that code contained within braces. {} - it is C++ convention to name your variables in lower case. - the statement "Div % Div == 0" is unnecessary as a number will always evenly divide into itself. - in your original posted code, you had an if statement using =. In C++, this is the assignment operator. The equal to operator is ==. Generally the code can be written much cleaner, not to mention the function you wrote is not recursive. The following code should work just as nicely: int gcd(int m, int n) { if(n == 0) return m; else gcd(n, m % n); }

Creating a website isn't extremely easy, but it isn't anything super difficult.Before you jump right in wanting to make a website, you can't just ask yourself how hard creating it is, you have to think about how much time you have to devote to the constant maintenance and care of the website. Of course, common logic dictates that knowledge of HTML and various other coding languages (most widely used - JavaScript and PHP, along with CSS) is required to start off your website in any professional environment (that is to say, outside of freewebs or somewhere with a WYSIWYG editor), so I most certainly suggest that if you have not already, learn HTML at the very least. Next up is the problem of making your website visually appealing while accomodating the rare Dial-Up user, and making sure that your website is compatable and still aestetically pleasing in all browsers (a problem that shamefully exists with my website). On top of the visual aspects, your website should still be easily navigated, or else it will turn off visitors. If you're not very good with making images and setting them up to become your site's layout, don't be afraid to ask for help from anyone you know and trust. Doing things by yourself is hard sometimes. Since in Dial-Up, large images won't load very well, you should always save your images in smaller file formats, such as JPG. Any good image editing program will save JPG images with as little quality loss as possible.Finally, we're back at the point of how much time you have to devote to the constant struggle of making sure that everything on your site is in tip top condition, which is above all other aspects, the most important in your site. If nothing works, then there's no need to worry about how it looks or how it's coded. You should always make sure you can devote at least 30 minutes daily to your website to make sure that everything is working, and if it isn't, have time to fix it. This is also another good place to have trusted friends to help you out if you don't have the time to devote to it constantly. If you need to learn HTML quickly, I suggest trying w3schools.com, it's where I learned. They have tutorials on other useful things too, so make sure to check that out. Good luck.

The unfortunate part about most skins, as convenient as they are, they leave residue and might eventually lose their stick. (I am aware that many skin providers claim they leave no residue, but I don't know how trustworthy that is.) The paint that I used on mine was originally supposed to be glossy, but eventually the gloss ran out and just left dull black.There seems to be a flaw with glossy paint, apparently the stuff has a higher gloss than paint ratio until you're almost out, meaning that the paint is more open to chipping and scratching, even though it shouldn't. My Wii console and Wavebird were painted after the Wii Remote and Nunchuk, leaving them just matte black. The Wii controllers have had various chipping and scratching, while my Wavebird (which I tested by scratching with a knife in a hidden place) is completely scratch resistant. Personally, I'm more fond of less glossy things, since fingerprints don't show up on them.Also, yeah. You can make designs or whatever you want on your Wii. I'm no artist, so I can't do any of that, but if you're artistically inclined, you can most certainly get creative with this stuff. Sorry I didn't include any in the works pictures, but of course I had already been long done with this before I posted the topic. However, as I tried to stress in the opening post, if you have even the slightest experience with opening your own computer, you're prepared to open your Wii. The most confusing aspect is how crammed together everything is, and even that's not impossibly challenging.

I love Brawl. I've been playing Super Smash Bros since the first one on the Nintendo 64, and consider Brawl superior to the others. There's a lot of people in the Smash Bros community that think Melee is better, but I don't really agree with them... For that matter, there's a lot I don't agree with many of them about. I play Lucas, my friend plays Fox. Whenever he comes over we play against each other quite a bit.

I love chess, anything to make me think strategically makes me feel good. I've been playing ever since I was 8, but I've never really played any version that gives me a rating... I have a chess mod installed on my site, I'm currently the number 1 player there. I haven't been challenged in a while, though. (After beating all of my moderators )

I much prefer the internet. There's never any re-runs on here unless I want there to be, and most TV programs are lame now. The internet has no waiting for whatever time a program comes on, no commercial breaks, and if I want to watch something, there's always Youtube.

Yeah, the one that's coming out for the DS is a remake of the first Fire Emblem, it's the one I was talking about - Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon. I most certainly want it, because I've always wanted to play the original one. They've opted to not use sprites in it, and instead are going with rendered characters, but that doesn't really change my opinion on it very much, although it does bother me that we'll never truly have "sprites" from it. Oh well.

Man, it's a shock that there isn't a topic for this already. I thought it was more popular than that, but maybe I'm wrong, so for people who aren't familiar with it, here's some history.In 1990, a very new and unique game appeared on the Famicom in Japan. This game came to be known as Fire Emblem, and stood out from the crowd of platformers and adventure games, with almost a chess like feel to it, players are given a set amount of units, each having their specific class and abilities and must meet the mission's requirements in order to advance the next stage. The units vary from your standard foot soldier with an axe, to a child which shape-shifts into a dragon. The original Fire Emblem, which only was released only in Japan, was titled "Fire Emblem: Ankoku Ryu to Hikari no Ken," which translated to "Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragons and the Blade of Light." This game featured Prince Marth, a descendant of a warrior of legend who slew a dread "shadow dragon" years ago. A dark force began to rise again, and Medeus, the shadow dragon, was once again given life. Marth then had to reclaim the "Fire Emblem" and slay Medeus along with the evil priest Gharnef.The game was a hit in Japan, and was an even bigger hit to importers and emulators around the world. However, the first time any official appearance of Fire Emblem's characters occurred outside of Japan was in Super Smash Bros Melee, where Marth and Roy (from the yet to be released Fire Emblem 6) were included as hidden characters. Thanks to this small, yet important inclusion, the knowledge of Nintendo's great turn based strategy game hit the western world. After a year of fan requests and petitions, Nintendo decided to localize Fire Emblem for American audiences, starting with Fire Emblem 7 (simply titled Fire Emblem here). So with the background out of the way, those of you who have played it, what do you think? My opinion on it is that it's a great series, and really brings a new experience to the table when you think about strategy and role playing games. I'm fond of chess, so I often find myself liking things that require more thought than just senselessly attacking. I can't wait for the release of Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon next year.

I've never used Open Office, but I've heard of it and think it's a good idea for people to finally make a free alternative to Word. Does it have the other MS Office applications in it, like Power Point and the other programs, or is it just a free Word? I've used MS Office all my life, I've been lucky enough to have it installed on every computer we own when we purchase it, but I can understand how some people may not be so fortunate.

I think it's a somewhat bad idea. It's never really smart to get attached to someone on a deep level over the internet, especially when you both know there's almost no chance you'll ever meet in real life. I'll admit, I've told friends on the internet (the ones that I have never met and probably never will) things that I haven't told my real friends. To me, that doesn't matter. If you need to or want to get something off your chest, but don't feel comfortable sharing it with people you personally know, then it's fine to get it off your chest on the internet. However, having a relationship on the internet is just... somewhat disturbed. I mean, you know nothing about this person. They could be the same gender as you and just pretending to be something else, be it for laughs, to eventually hurt you, or for other, twisted reasons. It's cool to have friends on the internet of the opposite sex, in fact, that's just natural. If everyone is like me, they'll more openly talk to the opposite sex online than in person, and not even feel scared about it. Then on the other side, even if they're for real, nothing is going to stop either party from just getting a real relationship with a person that lives within driving distance of them. There's no way two people can say "we're together like marriage" over the internet, it just can't happen.

I barely even know of anywhere aside from eBay and Amazon. I have heard of Buy.com before, and bamzu.com seems to have a lot of commercials, so I suppose they're probably the biggest ones I know about aside from eBay. Normally, the only eShops I know about are specialty ones that sell shirts or video game stuff.

I would try running homebrew on my system, but Nintendo sends out updates every now and again, and requires you to update your system whenever you get a new game for it, which would remove all homebrew apps you put on it. There's also that little chance of failure when you run it, so I didn't want to accidentally screw up my Wii. Maybe one day I'll mod it to run the Homebrew channel so that I can use the Wii to its fullest potential, but not now.