rvalkass

Like you, I was a bit wary the first time I installed Kubuntu onto my laptop. I took the following steps to ensure that I didn't lose any data and the process went as smoothly as possible: Back up onto DVDs - It seems obvious, but this way you have very little chance of losing anything. Yes, its a lot of hassle to make the backup and then to use the data on the DVDs, but its worth it. If you have an external HDD, use that instead. Defragment the drive - Defragmenting makes sure the files are all in one block on your HDD, so partitioning is less likely to cause any problems. Reboot into the (K)Ubuntu Live CD - Kinda important... Click the Install icon on the desktop - Again, basic, but important A friend of mine thought that once the live desktop appeared, it was installed. Get to the partitioning screen - At this stage choose to partition the disk manually. It will take the installer quite a while to determine what partitions are on your drive, but let it keep going. When it finally springs into life, take the following steps: Shrink your current partition down to about half the size of the drive. Make sure you only remove space from the "end" of the partition to avoid deleting data. Create a new partition for (K)Ubuntu, and make it fill the remaining space on the HDD except the last 2GB. Choose ResierFS as the file system. Fill the last 2GB on the disk with a final partition set as swap. Go! - Confirm the settings in the partitioner and go ahead with the installation. Remember, if the worst happens you have everything backed up anyway. Just as a side note, I received an error during the installation informing me that it didn't particularly like the data on my Windows partition for some reason. This seems to be a common issue, and you can just accept it and let the installer continue with no ill effects. The likely problem you had was that GRUB was placed on the first HDD, and Ubuntu on the second. This means that GRUB can't find Ubuntu, so can't mount it. Alternatively, GRUB went onto the second HDD along with Ubuntu, but the PC didn't search the second HDD for GRUB so failed to boot. As long as you put it all on the first HDD this time, you should be OK. Feel free to contact me if you want any help or advice.

My laptop has recently started to develop cracks along the hinges connecting the screen to the base of the laptop. I decided to phone Acer Customer Support to ask them about getting it repaired or replaced. I have had the laptop for roughly a year and it was still in warranty when I first attempted to phone Acer support. Firstly, getting through to Acer is not easy. I have been calling for a few days, each time being on hold for around half an hour before giving up. The number is not an 09 premium rate number, but its not free either Today, I finally got through to a real person, and I explained my problem to the representative. According to his all-knowing computer, however, my serial number reports the laptop was bought in March '06. This is just plain wrong. Not only is the date roughly 4 months early, but how can a serial number possibly reveal when I bought the machine? When it was made, possibly, but they have no idea how long it was sat on a warehouse shelf before I received it (I didn't buy directly from Acer). Magically, the guy on the phone also claims to know exactly how long delivery takes for every company. I informed him the invoice showed the date of purchase, and he simply stated that "delivery would have taken 2 days, max". This is also wrong, yet he refused to listen to reason. After much repeating of the facts, I finally got fed up of hearing the price of repair (?41.13 to have the laptop "inspected", and anything from ?80 to ?160 for the repair, plus VAT and postage) and slammed the phone down. Three things really annoy me about Acer support: The call should be an 0800 number, not 0870 - a warranty should be free support The amount of time hanging on the phone is ridiculous (and the music was awful ) The representative flatly refused to listen to me, simply repeating the price over and over again Including postage the total cost comes to?anywhere?between??165?and??260.?For?that?money?I?could?buy?myself?a?brand?new?22"?screen! Anyway, since today's call I have found an online conversation log with a friend revealing the date when I received the laptop. These conversation logs have stood up in court, but do you think it would be possible to get a support representative to accept one as proof my laptop was within warranty when I first started calling? For future reference - do not buy from Acer if you expect customer support. My laptop has broken right before the end of the warranty, so the build quality actually seems to be pretty poor and made just to last the one year warranty.

Making a broken PC into a working one requires knowledge of what is wrong with the machine. Do you know what piece of hardware isn't working? If so we can advise what to replace it with. Also, a run down of all the hardware in the computer would be handy. As for making it a web server, the method and hardware both depend on whether you are hosting only your own site, or a large number of sites (like Xisto). cPanel and WHM are not viable investments if you are only hosting your own site, but virtually vital (or their free alternatives) for a commercial hosting company.Give us some more information on the computer and your intentions for it, and we can provide some more accurate information.

The BBC are developing a piece of software called iPlayer, that will allow people who hold a TV Licence to watch brodcasts up to 7 days after their original transmission by downloading them through the BBC's software. This is a great idea, and shows the BBC are competing with the likes of Channel 4's On Demand service. It'll be free, and they've worked hard with the owners of the programmes to make sure they can bring as much as possible to the service. However, there is a major problem: iPlayer will require Microsoft Windows and Internet Explorer. The BBC's remit states the following: If a particular part of their service requires the purchase of hundreds of pounds worth of software to use, this does not seem particularly free of commercial interests. The BBC cite 2 main reasons: DRM and a low user proportion. I can understand why they need to use DRM (to satisfy the copyright holders), but the BBC have always been innovators of new technology, and surely they could work to develop a useable system for Linux, the Mac and other OSs? A low user base of around 5% of computer users is not a real excuse either. This proprtion is always growing, and the BBC provide other services used by a lower proportion of people than this. What are your opinions on this? Should the BBC be forced to allow Linux and Mac users like myself to use the service too, or should it just be open to Windows users?

If Google require your login page to be secure, you could always try CACert. They offer free security certificates for sites, and are intended for people like yourself. As its free, you've nothing to lose in trying it out and seeing if Google will accept it. If not, as Buffalo said, you're stuck with what Google offers you.

As jlhaslip stated, your free web hosting account at Xisto cannot be used to host anything illegal, or link to it. The key part is this section of the Terms of Service: Regardless of whether you host the illegal material, linking to it is considered promoting and contributing to piracy. The legality of a page full of links to illegal software is currently a grey area in certain countries, but in most countries it is just as illegal as hosting the illegal software or MP3s yourself. No good host would allow you to host a site like that, as they would continually be bombarded with requests to remove it. You would also be legally liable for it, as the person in charge of the site.

The site looks great - no fuss, clean and simple. The only problem is that some of the CSS doesn't seem to work with Opera, and occasionally only half a menu appears, or it runs onto two lines. The separate gallery pages (example) are the ones with errors. The menu at the bottom occasionally gets cut off, or the copyright is covered with the Creative Commons logo. Something to look into, anyway. (Also, the pages aren't valid). Other than that small issue, a very well designed site.

I think what it is actually attempting is the following: Take any requests to any pages in / -- this includes your forum directory Forward those requests to the forum directory As the forum directory is in / we need to forward them to the forum directory It then repeats the last 2 steps for ever, as it is constantly forwarding itself to a page that needs forwarding again. Try setting the forwarding to go from /index.htm to /phpBB3/index.php. Regardless of whether index.htm exists, anyone who types your address in will automatically look for it, and get forwarded. If that doesn't work, Tetraca's idea is also perfectly valid, just a different way of doing things.

Telnet is a system of communication between different computers, often in completely different physical locations. It allows you to run console or shell commands on a computer, without having to be sat in front of it, over a TCP/IP network (either a LAN or the Internet). For example, you could connect via telnet to a server, create directories, copy files, or do any other command you could use by being sat in front of that machine. As for a free download, if you are on Unix or Linux then you should already have some telnet application or commands available to you. For those running Windows, PuTTY is a good choice. For the Mac, I have no idea, but I'm sure a search for "telnet mac" or something similar would help.

When you buy a domain name, this is completely separate from your hosting (often with an entirely different company). When you buy the address, you 'point' it to Xisto, so it knows where to look for the web site. Then, you tell your hosting account to handle any requests Xisto receives for the domain by 'parking' it at your account. Your old Xisto subdomain will still work, but the new domain can also be used.Your hosting account remains completely intact and untouched by the change - all your files stay where they are, your cPanel information is the same... There is also no need to go through the "change of domain name" and use 15 credits. I never went through that, and happily use another domain on my hosting account.If you need any help setting it up, feel free to ask, or PM or email me if you need more advice.

Pigeon mail and pigeon post were widely used during wars before the advent of a reliable radio system. Pigeons were trained to fly between two places, so they could take messages out, wait for a reply to be written, and take it back. The system was so important during wartime that large penalties were put in place for killing pigeons (as seen in Blackadder) and rewards for killing their predators. Some countries also trained birds of pray to go out and kill enemy pigeons (Germany used hawks to kill French pigeons, for example). Newspapers and stockbrokers also found the system useful for quickly reporting information between offices or other set locations. However, the training required to make the pigeons know where to fly was often quite prohibitive for it to get wide usage outside the military.

Try the free software Audacity. Its a free sound editor that runs on virtually any operating system, including XP. It can take feeds in from practically anything and record them on to the PC. You can then edit the sounds and apply filters and adjustments to get it sounding perfect. Give it a go - its free so you've got nothing to lose!

I've always used 123-Reg for my domain needs - they are pretty cheap and very reliable. For example, .co.uk domains are only Ł2.59 a year. They have a huge array of domains available and I've never had any problems with them. I've also found the Nominet confirmation arrives quicker from them than from other domain providers. Setting a domain up is a fairly easy process. Once you have your domain, PM me or email me (look in my profile) and I'll guide you through it.

There are two ways to look at this: Windows is the most popular OS, therefore the huge majority of viruses are written for it, so it isn't Microsoft's fault. Of course, the opposing argument is "Well, they shouldn't have the bugs there to be exploited by viruses in the first place!" Personally, I think Microsoft need to be quicker at fixing the bugs that are reported to them. As truefusion said, the Linux community and distribution managers fix bugs a lot quicker than Microsoft do. You can safely run a Linux box with no firewall, no anti-virus or anything like that, and you will not receive a virus or any spyware on your PC. After about 20 minutes leaving an unprotected Vista box on, or about 10 minutes for XP, your PC will be virtually unusable! That even doesn't include using the PC in that time. If you were surfing around and downloading then you would have no chance at all. Only routers with in-built firewalls or those which don't have automatic port forwarding set up seem to be protecting most people - and why many claim Windows has become more secure. It hasn't - people just use more protection.

If you are behind a router or proxy server, it is likely the proxy server or router is caching the page, as you seem like you access it quite frequently. In the router case, go into the router's settings and disable caching for Xisto. The exact method wildly varies from router to router, so check the manual. If its a proxy server, go into the server settings and make Xisto exempt from being cached. Again, the method varies.

Believe it or not, there is a set a standards layed down for advertising on the Internet. They were decided by the IAB (Interactive Advertising Bureau) and should be followed in any web design incorporating adverts. https://www.iab.com/ The sizes in bold are the more traditional, widely used, sizes.

Personally I am surprised it took them that long to release the fixes. Yes, its beta software, but it should still display basic functionality and usability. For example, including text on the menus, the address bar, the About box - in fact including text anywhere in Safari would have been a nice touch: Tests for the speed of Safari have also lied, as Safari starts the onload process before the page actually loads, so speed tests for loading pages show it to be incredibly quick, some even showing a load time of 0ms! Its great to see Apple porting Safari to Windows, as it makes it easier to test websites in all browsers. However, it would have helped if they had actually tested it on Windows before they released it to the public. If anything its had the opposite effect to the one they wanted - people have downloaded it, seen it doesn't work, and will never look at it again.

If you start the design off with DIVs rather than tables, as opposed to converting from tables to DIVs then its really no extra work and no more difficult. OK, there can be slight issues when IE decides to throw standards out the window and repeatedly stamp on them, but I generally find DIVs work better than tables for layout.Unfortunately, most people using PS to design their site will export it as an HTML page comprising of tables. I seem to remember that even if you tell it to export with DIVs, all it does is put each one in a table cell Until this changes, most designers will use tables simply because that is what they're used to. Worryingly, most are still being taught to use tables for layout rather than DIVs, and I cannot for the life of me see why.

Run 3 graphical installers like any other applications - one each for Apache, PHP and MySQL. Each one detects eachother and they all work together straight away. I always wondered what the appeal of things like XAMPP was... Anyway, PHPMyAdmin can be installed relatively easily by extracting all the files to the htdocs folder in Apache's directory. I would recommend creating a separate folder for PHPMyAdmin (such as htdocs/phpmyadmin/). Then open the config.inc.php file and set all the settings (address, username and password, etc...). Open your browser and it should run If not there are plenty of guides on the 'net.

I downloaded this last night when a friend told me it had come out. Unforutnately there seems to have been a massive screw up, as on my Windows box there is no text at all on any of the menus, address bar, About box or anything It does make it kinda hard to use! I also don't like the fact Apple have started bundling loads of their software together by default. For example, the default download of Safari includes Quicktime and Bonjour - why?Anyway, I don't think I'll leave Opera any time soon - Safari has nothing new for me and there is no feature I look at and go "Wow" like the mouse gestures when Opera first introduced them. That, and Opera's GUI works...

I think this is a brilliant idea, but the system would need to be kept as simple as possible. A large number of templates and easy ways to add text, images, videos etc needs to be devised. Most people who visit the site will have no idea what HTML is and will simply want to fill their part of the site with as much content as possible. Starting off with a blank page is a great idea - it means every page is completely personal, but you still need a way to let people easily make the page look presentable. An idea would be to allow people to post their snippets of text or whatever and provide a settings page somewhere to configure text colours, backgrounds and things like that. A really simple JavaScript colour picker or something similar would also work quite well. Requesting a parent's permission is not usually that effective, as people who want to get around it simply use a second account of their own. In the US you need to comply with COPPA if you allow access to children under the age of 13. This involves mailing out or faxing forms to parents, or verifying credit card information. Both take a bit of time both for you and the parent and can deter a lot of people. Asking for a date of birth is also ineffective as people just lie about their birth year. This is a problem that plagues all social networking sites and hasn't yet really been resolved. Also, all of the web addresses suggested are already registered Anyway, I'm willing to help out with any PHP, MySQL, HTML, CSS or design stuff if you need it.

Happy Birthday to the best free hosting provider I have ever come across! I was amazed when I first found Trap 17 and I am still amazed today at the number of features and the work that goes into creating the service. I can only hope this continues for many years to come :lol:Happy 3rd Birthday, and a massive thank you to Trap 17 and all the staff for keeping this place in good working order.

Yes, there are two versions of the operating system: a 32-bit version and a 64-bit version. To make advantage of a 64-bit processor you need to buy the 64-bit version. My computer came with XP pre-installed. I have an AMD Athlon 64 processor, but the 32-bit version of XP was all they would install. It is vital that you check exactly which version you are buying to make sure you get the most from it.

Anyone can buy an OEM copy of Windows. The whole point of an OEM version is that Microsoft have no obligation to offer support, it can't be upgraded and you can't transfer the licence from PC to PC. All Microsoft require is that you keep the copy 'married' to the same motherboard after purchase. I know many people who buy a few OEM copies of Windows and install them on PCs they build as and when they need to. They buy the copies in advance so there is no delay building a system for a client. If a store is requesting all that proof, email them and ask why they need it. If the answer isn't a valid reason (I can't think of one myself) then email them back and say you are going to buy from elsewhere.

You don't need a huge amount of space. I have 10GB for the root partition (7GB of that is being used at the moment) a 2GB swap partition and the rest as my /home partition. Its always a good idea to keep /home on a separate partition so that if you ever need to reinstall, you can keep all your data on there and tell the installer not to format that partition. AMD offer a range of ATI drivers here. There are a few on Linux, so see if you can find your card there and download the official driver.