rvalkass

I've put the latest version up online: http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/ I have turned debugging on for the time being just to check why the data doesn't get loaded. My only worry is that it's always saying it can't load the content from the RSS feeds. This is not an issue running locally, which implies there is something specific in Xisto's PHP configuration that is preventing file_get_contents() from doing its job. Viewing the site locally, the news on the right hand side fills the screen vertically, pushing the three bottom boxes below the fold. A smaller font, less spacing, or a wider column would solve the issue, and I think it's important otherwise visitors may very well ignore everything that's getting pushed off the bottom. Konqueror unfortunately provides absolutely no help as to why it's crashing, and I can't find any specific help online. Using PHP to parse the data and AJAX to refresh it on the page could work to solve the issue, depending on exactly what is crashing Konqueror. As it crashes before all the data is displayed, it would suggest that it crashes parsing it at some point. There is also another small bug. The topic titled 'new' Soldier War Sig has no text displayed for its link. I assume this is due to the single quotes in the title.

The way I log in to mine is to go to Google App account and obviously replacing domain-name.com with whatever your domain is. Then enter your username and password that you set up during creation of your account. You can also use an application like Thunderbird and access your mail via IMAP or POP3 - Google have full step-by-step instructions for loads of mail clients on their help pages.

I like the colour scheme, but I would change the fonts. For example, the word "search" next to the search box is very difficult to read. The Home, About and Archives links are also a bit tricky. The font used for the date next to each post is far too small, and also doesn't fit in - a slightly more decorative font, or a block sans-serif one would look better. The little apple thing for your RSS feed wasn't instantly obvious - I think I'd have got it straight away if it was the actual RSS feed standard logo though. Maybe it's just me and I'm just half blind I'd also have done something more interesting with the links in the sidebar to incorporate them into the site more, but how to do that is up to you. Other than those few little things it's a good design.

There are two things you can do to speed up your computer in general, not just for games: close running processes, or throw hardware at it. Stop every background task you can (Windows applications have a tendency of spawning background processes for no good reason) and close all running programs before starting your game. If you use the Task Manager to look at your CPU and memory usage you should be able to see if you've got anything running taking up a lot of your computer's power. If games are still running too slow after that then you need to throw more hardware at the problem. The graphics card is the main bottleneck when it comes to gaming, so look at getting a new graphics card if you want to run games faster. The CPU and RAM are probably equal second in importance, so look at upgrading those too if you can't upgrade your graphics card. No. These services generally use the minimum and recommended specifications for each game. The minimum generally describes the hardware required to get the game to appear on the screen at the lowest detail settings and with all effects turned off. It is arguable if the game would be playable with these minimum specifications - generally a framerate of at least 25fps is needed for smooth playback. The recommended specifications are usually nearer the mark for running the game smoothly at low settings, or maybe enabling the odd medium setting or two. If you want to run games at high detail settings with all the special effects then you need to get much better hardware than the recommended specifications. The Celeron CPUs are all single-core CPUs. Most games now are written to take advantage of at least two CPU cores, so getting a good dual-core CPU would be a step in the right direction. Of course, that would need you to look at a new motherboard, new RAM, etc. Your graphics card is from nVidia's budget range, so cannot be expected to play any games at high detail settings, and may struggle with too many at medium as well. You will likely need to keep at least a few settings at low to get an acceptable framerate. SLI depends on your graphics cards and your motherboard supporting the technology. It also works better for some games than others. You'd also want to check your PSU can provide the power required for two graphics cards.

Definitely. Unplug the computer from the wall socket and take the CMOS battery out of the motherboard. Keep it out for at least a minute. This should cause your motherboard to forget all of the BIOS settings and revert back to the BIOS defaults (not necessarily the same as the manufacturer defaults). Place the CMOS battery back into the motherboard, reconnect the power supply and switch on. As soon as you can, get into the BIOS. You will need to reset absolutely every setting to exactly how it was before, including CPU speed, voltages, RAM timings, system clock... everything. Before you started overclocking you should have noted down what all the values were so you could easily change them back. If you haven't written them down then you'll need to use your CPU and RAM information to find out the required voltages, speeds, etc. and use those. Check your PC boots after correcting all the settings and saving.

Which images are you referring to? As far as I'm aware it looks as it should, and all the required images (just three) are uploaded and working. It seems unnecessary to add other images for the rounded corners etc. when they are done using CSS. It's possible it's a problem with Konqueror's HTML rendering, but it's generally pretty good at following the standards. For interest, I've set the example site running through BrowserShots just to see if there are any other issues we need to address: http://browsershots.org/http:/www.rvalkask/gfxtrap-demo/

The latest version of the code was posted here. I will also endeavour to keep the latest version live on the 'net for everyone to see at this address: http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/ I'm still looking at the issues in Konqueror - they seem to be due to some margin/padding issues that I haven't quite worked out without screwing up other browsers. I think we're waiting on BH to come up with the RSS feeds we need to generate the content, after which we can work on some PHP code to parse them into a useful form to display on the site.

You need to make 5 good quality posts on the forums before your myCENTs will appear. Once they appear then they will be calculated for those first 5 posts and any others you make. Once you have 100 myCENTs they get converted into $1 and added to your billing account. Simply log in to your billing account to spend them on web hosting and domains.

You can't use the same Wordpress install to run multiple sites in that way. I think Wordpress MU would allow you to do this - it's designed as a platform for you to offer multiple blogs to people running from the same cetnral Wordpress installation. They can share themes, extensions, etc. and pick which ones they want to use for their own blog. I can't remember exactly how each blog is accesses via the address though - I think it's most likely to be folder names (like http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/ ) rather than with subdomains. Drupal offers exactly what you want from one normal installation and I believe it works with subdomains if you want it to, but of course that would require you running Drupal rather than Wordpress

I've looked around and can't find a module or anything to perform what you want. Using Views and possibly CCK you would be able to produce a page that did exactly what you want, then set that page as your site's default page. You would also most likely be able to do it directly in the code. I can't remember exactly how to go about it, but I can take a look at Drupal's code and see what needs to be done (most likely one extra template file to be added) to get it to work as you want. If you're changing the first post so that it doesn't have a teaser then the RSS feed will obviously display the whole thing. Changing the template as I described above should allow you to leave each post with a teaser and therefore your RSS feed would work as you want, while the template would force the first post to display in full on the actual website. You need to sign up to Feedburner and give them the link to your actual RSS feed. They'll give you a link to put on your site for your visitors to use that will show them your RSS feed while also giving you statistics. If you're going to use Feedburner then you don't have much choice over the images you use - you're stuck with whatever Feedburner give you if you want the ones with the number of readers on them. On a side note, the orange button is a de facto standard to represent RSS feeds, used in Firefox, Opera and Internet Explorer as well as most websites with RSS feeds. If you use an image other than the standard one you risk losing RSS readership as people can't find the button!

Any idea of the specs this 'netbook' will have? At under $1000 I can't imagine it having anything too fantastic in the performance department. I'm also not a great fan of Alienware's current design for their laptops. For me they look a bit too ostentatious and garish, even for a gaming laptop.

Traditional HDDs are dirt cheap and easy to add/replace to a PC, so lots of storage space isn't a problem. If you go for a SSD you'll have incredible speed but you'll pay thousands to get the storage space you need. Then it probably isn't the best idea to get a laptop. Even laptops designed specifically for gaming tend to be much poorer performers than their desktop counterparts.

Make a new image (obviously ). I've used 320x150 although any size should be fine. Paste your render in on a plain white background.Choose a colour that works well with your render. Set this as your foreground colour and black as the background colour. Fill the image with the gradient, starting with your colour at the top and working to black at the bottom. Generally I've found darker colours work the best, but you're welcome to experiment - it's how we all learn!Now we need to add some interesting features to the background. There are plenty of ways to do this, and your imagination really is the limit. One of my favourite methods is to use the cloud generation to create a random pattern. Create a new layer and fill it with white. Then click Filters > Render > Clouds > Difference Clouds. Set Detail to 1 and the X and Y sizes to 5.0, then hit OK. Set the Layer Mode for this layer to Overlay.To get a bit more contrast to your background, duplicate the clouds layer and make sure it is still set to Overlay.This can (as it has in my case) make the render look a bit washed out. To compensate for this, duplicate the render layer. Set the Layer Mode to Soft Light. To get rid of some of the harsher edges this creates, give this layer a 5px Gaussian blur (Filters > Blur > Gaussian Blur).Some more interesting brushing is required to provide a bit more depth to the sig and fill in a little bit of the space left by the render. How you want to do this is up to you, and really depends on the brushes you're using. Slight overlap with the render can help to bring it in to the sig and make it feel part of it rather than an item slapped on top. Experiment with different Layer Modes to see what works well. I eventually ended up with this:The next step is to add a border. A simple 1px black line often works well. Create a new layer, set the foreground colour to black and press Ctrl+A. Click Edit > Stroke Selection and set the line width to 1px.The last step is adding the text. Type your chosen text in a font you feel works. There are so many out there it's impossible to recommend one, but you'll know when you find one that works. You'll then need to find a way to incorporate the text into the design. This depends on the colour and style of your sig, but Layer Modes can provide a good starting point or ideas for how the text could look. Brushing is also a possibility.Any questions? :(Comments, criticism, etc. all welcome, good or bad

My entry for this time: The result of my tutorial on making a sig in the GIMP

Topic is resolved.Please PM any moderator to continue this discussion. Until then, this topic is closed.

How? All PC components are standardised to make sure you can use all hardware together (within reason). It's possible that Dell and Gateway (the cow logo) would go to the extent of producing their own hardware specifications, motherboards and all hardware but it seems somewhat foolish considering the colossal cost involved and lack of support (even for a company like Dell). Dell's desktops, from my experience, work fine with standard hardware. All laptops (not just Dells and Gateways) are another matter simply because they use odd form factors and fairly customised parts anyway (hence their comparatively high price). There are plenty of guides online and in PC hardware magazines to building your own PC from scratch. It's not really as hard as it seems - everything can only fit in one hole, one way around. The only part requiring skill or judgement is applying thermal paste to the CPU cooler, but as most coolers now come with it pre-applied, even that has been largely removed from the difficulty. If you have little idea of the internals of a PC then choosing the components can feel a bit overwhelming, but you've got a forum full of people here that are willing to help If you're seriously interested in building your own PC then start a new topic and ask for advice on components - What exactly do you need your PC to do? What's your budget? Do you need a monitor? etc. People will come flooding back with advice and ideas. A computer generates most of its heat in the first few minutes. After that you reach a steady state of the components producing heat and the fans/water cooling/whatever removing it. The only reason for that steady state to change is if part of your cooling fails (ie. a fan stops spinning) or a component fails. If the cooling fails that's a cheap and easy fix. If a component fails then that's generally more expensive, and it can take a while to diagnose exactly which component has given up the ghost. Running 24/7 will obviously shorten the life of your components, but most people serious about their hardware replace the components well before they fail in that way anyway.

I'll be honest with you. The text is the weakest part. It looks like you just slapped it on top of the sig as an afterthought rather than including it in your original idea or design. As the focal point of the sig, it really appears to bring the whole look down - without the text it would look much better. The font you picked is a fairly tall font, and the effect you've applied only makes it look even taller. To me, it makes the font look stretched and out of proportion (even if it isn't) simply because of that added effect. The effect itself (the blue lines around the borders of the text) also doesn't fit with the rest of the style of the sig. The renders and background, while featuring strong lines, are actually fairly soft and blend well together. The text effect is too jagged and jarring and detracts from that. No harm in using two renders. Each works well with the background behind it and they both work well together on the same sig. The outer glow doesn't work that well at blending the renders in to the background - take a look at brushing, perhaps even some subtle erasing, etc. to blend them slightly more at key points. The background is good, and works very well with the renders you've picked, especially the colours you've used. Sorry to be so critical, but I've tried to offer what I see as constructive criticism

My favourite brand of computer is the one where I build it myself You get so much more control over the hardware, and it usually works out cheaper than buying a machine pre-built. Choosing something for gaming and 'multitasking' could be difficult, depending on how intensive your multitasking is. Games generally run better on faster dual-core processors and make little use of extra cores on triple or quad-core processors. A multitasking PC will of course run better on a slightly slower quad core than a faster dual core. One of AMDs new triple-core processors could actually be a good balance - you're not spending too much extra for a core you won't use in gaming, yet you still have excellent multitasking abilities. If you're going to buy a pre-built PC, and you're aiming for a high end machine (as you seem to be), then check out the following companies. They were all deemed good enough to enter the Dream PC competition last year, so produce very high quality and powerful machines: Beast Computers Chillblast Kobalt Computers CryoPC Scan Computing

You can mix and match myCENTs with other payment methods, you know. For example, I just bought a domain and paid about $6 with myCENTs and the rest with my debit card. Think of the myCENTs as gift vouchers - you can put them towards a purchase or buy something with just those, but you can combine them with another payment method if you want to treat yourself to something more expensive.

It is all done via Xisto - Support.com now. I have absolutely no idea why the old forum is still there OpaQue or BuffaloHELP should be able to provide an answer to that one.

Google Analytics presumably provides you with a short piece of JavaScript/HTML to insert into your page if I recall correctly? If so, just open up either the header or footer template file in phpBB and paste the code in somewhere. As it doesn't display anything I'm guessing you could probably put it anywhere on the page, but somewhere clear and obvious in the header/footer is best.Log in to your forum and go to the administration panel. Click the "Styles" tab. On the left hand side click "Templates". Next to your current theme (repeat for all themes on your site) click the word "Edit". Scroll down and edit either overall_header.html or overall_footer.html. Paste the code in and save the file.

Log in to the billing site here: https://support.xisto.com/ Click Order on the right hand side. In the Categories drop down at the top of the page, select Virtual Private Servers. The page will refresh and show you the VPS options. Click the radio button next to the one you want to order. Click Click to Continue >> at the bottom of the page. Complete any information you need to for your order.

You've earned $4 so far so it has been updated perfectly fine in the past. Making very short posts will earn you pretty much nothing at all, so make sure your posts are at least a line or two long and contain quality content. Also make sure you are posting in sections that actually give myCENTs. It's also possible OpaQue is working behind the scenes on the myCENTs system, and that often pauses them being calculated and transferred. If that's the case then when he's done all your posts will be added in the normal way.

The melting point of lead solder is about 183oC and I certainly wouldn't want to heat the inside of an XBox up to that temperature Also, you'd have no control at all over where the solder went, and presumably having the XBox in its vertical orientation would play havoc if you started melting the connections... Having researched it on the Internet I've found suggestions ranging from "it heats the processors and melts them back on to the motherboard" to "it resolders all the graphics cards"

I'm one of those people who has no criminal record and a clean driving licence If I disagree with a law then I'll do what I can to investigate why things are that way. You have to understand that your view is not the only view. For example, while some people believe we should remove all speed limits, I don't. Some people believe drug taking should be legal, I don't. The same goes for those making the laws - they have to represent the majority opinion and sometimes that is a very difficult thing to do (take fox hunting as a prime example).