rob86

I would like to recommend the software for blocking advertisements on web browsers called Ad Muncher. It is available at https://www.admuncher.com/. It is a very excellent lightweight piece of software and is compatible with Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Opera (though FF requires a manual installation, whatever that means I haven't tested it on FF). It worked no problems at all for me right 'out of the box' so to speak. However, if there was a problem, it's easy to see that it'd be simple to fix with the highly customizable options. Have you ever had software that you would install immediately after a format or new PC purchase? This is one software I would not be without. It speeds up my web browsing a lot and claims to have saved me 806mb of bandwidth (!) since April 1. I'll admit I'm a bit skeptical that it saved me from downloading almost one gigabyte of advertisement banners, but that's what it says. It has a very plain gray typical windows user interface, but that's perfect. No need for a flashy appearance to use all a computers memory.It also has an IP Scrambler for safer and more private browsing, but I haven't used that option myself (unnecessary slow down for a dial up user) TIP: One not so obvious feature is you can use it to block non advertisement images that annoy you. For example, I prefer a minimalist look on most of the things I use. I sometimes set it to remove images such as banners on top of websites I frequent. It's easy to do with a simple right click, and it not only speeds up loading, it just makes information more readable without a bunch of images. I used that tip on an online TV channel program guide. Before AdMuncher, it was a bloated mess with flashy and animated advertisements everywhere. It made browsing the guide annoying. I would block almost every single image, the banners, the advertisements between every 10 channels, and the difference was amazing. It was like going from a free user to a registered ad-free user with a few simple clicks.Another example is the Bookmark/Digg/Twitter thing on this site and many others. I never use these features and the colour images distract me a little bit. I just right click and set it to block and the jobs done. The image is never to be seen again!AdMuncher: Highly Recommended! 5/5 Stars!

lol how many myCents did you get for that artwork, HDuff? It's like 2000 characters. I don't understand what the problem is, flashclocks. I know you want the mycents, but why not just write another couple decent posts somewhere? I seem to get mycents relatively quick, I'm up to $12 and I stopped actively trying for cents after I had my first $6 a few days ago. I don't know how many you need but I'm sure you'll accumulate enough if you just do some more posting.Maybe you've already received them though, since you haven't said anything.Good luck, anyway.

I just tried the newest version of Ares and it barely even works. I cannot get it to connect. I tried repeatedly and disabled my firewall. I thought it connected once, but when I searched it just found a bunch of hardly even related results and I was disconnected before I could try another search. I'm watching my modem lights and they don't even blink to show they're trying to connect. I'm surprised you can even get it connected. I never had these problems with other P2P. Maybe my ISP blocks it like HDuff's does. I have no idea, but it was a frustrating download

Is this about my thread on meditation? I had no idea my thread could become so controversial! (in a roundabout way). I see the doppelganger of which you speak. Spooky, eh? I guess it should be fixed, because it seems like a forum bug, but it doesn't bother me or anything. Impressive observation skills, though! You seem to be the first one ever to have noticed it!! Congratulations. :angel:

I'm not sure if this list is about Video or just Audio. I've used a lot of media players, I used Winamp for a long, long time. I switched to foobar mp3 after I got bored with the coolness of Winamp and wanted something light weight. I used another one whose name escapes me, but it was horrible and buggy. If anyone here wants a truly lightweight audio player, check out 1x1 (1 by 1). It's incredibly lightweight and makes foobar look like a bulky hulk. It has a surprising amount of good features considering it's size. On the video side, I use VLC and media player classic. I used to use winamp, but it became inadequate and didn't open some files. For some reason, half the videos I watch are all out of whack aspect ratio wise, even recorded off the tv, and MPC lets you have real customizability over that. Realplayer is horrible though, it did get better in the later years but it's always been a pretty bad overly bulky and buggy media player.Never used Windows Media Player hardly at all in my life.. don't know if I'm missing something or not.

Oh wow I love extensions. Whenever I get new software (mp3 software/Browsers/etc) I run to the extensions/plugins page and become a download junkie. That's one thing I dislike about Opera and that's the lack of extensions. It has some decent widgets but most don't integrate very well and the important ones like Roboform seem to be destined for incompatibility.I mostly stick with Opera because it's always been the fastest browsing experience for someone on dialup, in my opinion. Firefox was a bit, well much slower..on every version I tested (even with images enabled on both). I think because it waits until the page is completely downloaded or something before showing it, it makes it seem a lot slower. Your Dream Package's are looking mighty tempting though. You have a lot of cool extensions in there...hmm.. and I could finally use Roboform... :(You know, I think I just might download Firefox 3 and give your packages a try. I've been a loyal Opera user for as long as I can remember but there's no denying there's a heck of a lot more 3rd party functionality with Firefox. I'm often disappointed and feel left out when Firefox users have cool stuff that has no equal on Opera. :excl:I have a question though, that you might know the answer to. Do you know of any plugins that make disabling/enabling images easier? I often browse websites sans-image due to my internet speed. I know you can turn off images in FF but you have to go into the options and it's quite a bit more work when switch between images/no images a lot.I'm doubting Firefox could compare in that department, most people don't seem to disable images, let alone with individual page image loading options ..but that's important to me, but maybe I could live without it..with a really souped up FireFox 3.. By the way, do you have any tips/extensions for speeding up Firefox?I have another question also, I hope it's not changing the subject too much, but for some reason I often have literally like 10 hidden window firefox.exe's running in the task manager. I don't think it's spyware, but I don't know whats causing it. I don't know if it's Firefox not closing properly, or what. I thought it was a firefox bug, but nobody else seems to complain about it. Maybe the problem will go away when I reinstall Firefox anyway.. Thanks for your extension packages anyway I guess I'll prepare for a night of downloading and trying out a bunch of extensions tonight.. :angel: Don't have time now..

I'm honestly surprised Wikipedia is as great as it is. You'd think an encyclopedia written by people for free would be crap, but it's very very good as long as you verify the information that's important to you. Most of the things I look up on wikipedia are just things I feel like getting a general idea of, and it works great for that, I don't care if it's got an inaccurate birthdate or the year of a famous historical war battle is a decade off. If for some reason that information is extremely important, I would look at a more reliable source. Wikipedia really has information on pretty much everything. It's unbelievable. I remember when wikipedia was new, and had few pages. Funny how things change..And the attitude of people on wikipedia and other pedia's is incredible as well.. if you ever look at an articles discussion.. there are often heated debates about the most minor of details on the most obscure knowledge.. some people are really passionate about writing the wikipedias .. loledit: ARGH. Sorry about the double post. I'm not doing it on purpose, I don't know why it's happening. I think my mouse is clicking twice on everything, maybe it's sticking or something. Is there any way to delete it? I can only see a way to edit it.. Notice from saint-michael: double post fixed

I had this very discussion with a friend of mine, a catholic mother of a teenage daughter. She was forcing her child to go to church and study the bible from a young age. I thought that wasn't right. The daughter didn't even want to learn about it. I'm a person who loves meeting people from different cultures and I've met many people of different religions. I'm not a real believer in religious stuff, but for arguments sake let's the stuff in one of the holy books is completely true. The thing about religion is, someone has to be wrong. All the religions in the world can't be right, and true can they? That wouldn't make sense, because I know Christians think muslims have weird beliefs and muslims think catholics have weird beliefs etc etc. So I think, from a completely neutral and and unbaised standpoint, if there is a God and whatever else, that all religions have a chance at being the 'right' one. Could be Christianity, could be Hinduism, could be Islam, who knows? I sure don't. When a child is taught something at a young age, they're very very impressionable, and their whole life it's quite possible they'll keep beliefs or fears even if they're irrational or wrong. In the case of religion, you're pretty much cementing your views in their heads and let's say they're taught Christianity. Most likely, except for the rare individual, that person will shun all other religions because it's not what they were taught. What if Islam is the true one? They just taught their child the wrong stuff and they're probably going to hell or whatever. I see many, many people who claim to be strong Christians, yet have never read the bible, who literally haven't a clue what's in it. I see something wrong with that. I think if you're going to be religious, you should atleast put some effort into choosing what you believe in. Even I've read a little of the bible, the torah, the koran even literature on hinduism, buddhism and sikhism (recommendation of a friend), and then even rastafarianism (bob marley fan!). It just seems strange to be a believer in something you know nothing about when there's such a huge amount of choices out there. And in my opinion that's whats happening as a result of teaching children religion at a young age. You're telling them what's right, instead of letting them choose for themselves when they're old enough to understand. That stuff will stick with you your entire life. It's like people being abusive and violent because their parents are. Most people would agree beating up your spouse and children is wrong, yet people do it, some even go to counseling, I think in some (not all) cases, it's ingrained into their sub conscious brain or something.If a person chooses or feels they should be religious, they should atleast choose the religion. There are so many different beliefs, it just seems wrong to force something on anyone and to believe it because as hanoratu put it, "Mommy and daddy said so". I think a lot of people who are raised with religious beliefs don't ever stop to think that they have a choice. My parents never really forced religion on me, they sent me to church a few times when I was younger, but they are not religious people. This allowed me to read about the religions of the world myself, none of them really appealed to me, but that's besides the point.The confusing thing is, if a person believes in a religion, then I assume they really BELIEVE it, and want to help their children by teaching it. So while it may be an outsiders opinion that they're doing something wrong by teaching lies, I'm sure the parent feels they're doing the right thing by teaching the child how to avoid going to hell (or whatever).I don't think anybody truly knows for certain if what they believe in is true, so I think it's best to let young people decide for themselves, it just seems best. I believe in freedom of choice.

Is there a lot of racism is the UK? I haven't been there, but I have family and friends living in the UK and everyone seems to hate each other there. For example, I like indian food. When I say something casual to a normally polite and kind white friend from the UK, for example, "I had some good Indian food the other day" they get all worked up about the immigrant situation in England and start ranting and raving and foaming at the mouth throwing insults and stereotypes everywhere and I'm like, whoa, what's with all the hatred? Then they whip out the good old "I don't HATE them, in fact, one of my best friends is a ______!" defense. You know what I mean!

Hey there, welcome to Trap 17. You've had some good design software suggestions already. I'm not sure your skill with graphics design, you may be a guru already, but some good graphics software to have is Photoshop, Paint Shop Pro, and GIMP. Gimp is legally free, so that's always good. I think I'll check out Aptana too.

I haven't lied too much to the people I talk to online. I've met some people who lied big time though. I knew a woman who lied about her age and appearance to seduce under 18 boys. I also met a woman who sent me beautiful photos and told me she was 18 from california. I knew she was a bit odd, by the way she acted, very obsessive for example, so I stopped talking to her. She seemed real and honest enough though with her stories of her mother dying in a car accident and what not. I had a female friend who talked to her for a few years after though, and the subject came up about this person, and it was revealed to me that this woman was a completely different person, ten years older with three children. Odd.I've never understood why people who send fake pictures though. I would feel completely weird using someone else's photo and claiming it's me. What would you do if you fell in love with the person and wanted to meet, or even if it was just a friend. It just seems like a bad idea. I've even heard of people using fake photos to earn money from phone sex etc. Weirdddd.

The chances of a "big foot" are probably pretty slim, but it's still interesting to read about Big Foot and stuff. It gets the imagination working, and adds some spice to life, I think! It makes life a little more interesting with some hard to believe stories floating around. I often envy the people in the past who didn't have all the knowledge and truths we have today. The people who sailed across the oceans wondering if their were massive sea creatures or other mythical creatures for example, or wondering if there were Martians living next door. We know so much today, it gets kind of boring. It's like a Magician, they are fun to watch, but once you know the truth about how they work, there's one more fun thing gone.Did you know that there are still human tribes in the world that supposedly haven't had contact with the outside world before? A plane flew over them or something and they were shooting bow and arrows at it. Apparently it wasn't a hoax, even though their existence was known years ago. It was widely publicized in the news, so maybe you heard it. That was quite a surprising thing to me, that there are still people living in the wilderness like animals and children growing up with no knowledge at all of what exists outside. It sounds almost like a myth, but apparently it was true. If people like that exist out in the wilderness, to me it makes a myth like Bigfoot seem more plausible. Not that I'm saying there IS a Bigfoot, I doubt there is, since none has been found yet, it's just fun to consider the possibility, and really boring to just deny it's existence.

I used to watch the simpsons when I was younger. I know someone who's a very big fan of the simpsons and they agree that the quality of the episodes has dropped a lot. It's really been going on too long now I think. I sure wouldn't mind making 400k per episode though.

Stalking the wild asparagus? The title of that book is actually quite interesting. I suppose I do a bit of foraging sometimes! I pick berries and walk through bug infested swamps for wild fiddle heads among other things. What exactly is the Wild Asparagus book about? Does it tell you how to identify wild plants? Recipes? I haven't heard of Dr Bronners.

My all-time favourite book / 'trilogy' of books is 'Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy' and I recommend it to everyone. Not everyone I recommend it to likes it though, so I guess its not something that appeals to all. Unfortunately I don't have too many suggestions for you, the last few years I haven't been reading many books. The funny thing is, I'm actually a read-a-holic, but I don't read many novels. I'm addicting to reading the stuff you see on shampoo bottles, food packages, boxes, etc. You know, those little blurbs of useless stuff. Anywhere there's a small bunch of words, I have to read it. I also enjoy instruction manuals. Growing up my favourite part of Christmas was getting presents that had massive and complicated instruction manuals. I couldn't wait to sit in bed and curl up with a good instruction manual. Weird, I know. And not very helpful to you in the slightest :(So if it was me, I'd lug along a small bag of random junk to read on the way. Whatever you find in the house just toss it in a bag, soup cans, tooth paste, rip the tags off your matress and take it with you. What, not the suggestion you're looking for, you say? Well from my novel reading days, I did enjoy John Grisham, Stephen King novels. I mostly read informative books (when I read REAL books), like books about astronomy, history.When you say you enjoy food themed books, what does that mean? Cook books? Frankenpizzas brought to life by mad scientists? I love food in general so the idea of food themed books sounds interesting to me..What books would you recommend, by the way?(Sorry this isn't very helpful, but I tend to ramble when I'm getting paid myCents... Shhh..)

Hey Abby! Welcome to Xisto. I'm Rob and also a new member, just joined a few days ago. When you say playing music, does that mean you're a musician? Music rocks! One of my favourite things. I also jog/hike and kayak often too! In fact, just got back from kayaking minutes ago. I've never tried sailing, though I would love to. I'm trying to design a website also, but I'm kind of stuck.. not sure what it should be about is the big problem! Hard to make a website that way . Hope you enjoy yourself here, I like it, haven't tried ordering web space myself yet since I can't think of a darn name, but I did earn $8 with my few posts! Here are some links for you to check out when you have time. These links were given to me by the helpful Baniboy when I joined. https://support.xisto.com/ <- Register here with the same email you use for Xisto as soon as possible! This is how you get your web space. http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/ <- These are some rules, try not to break to many! http://forums.xisto.com/topic/106-free-web-hosting-service-registration-3-easy-steps-to-your-new-free-website/ <- Some more information for you.

I enjoy reading your pet care tips. I never thought of trimming the hair in the ears before but that makes sense. I will do that. I have a Border Collie, by the way . I'm pretty sure he doesn't have any ear mites right now but if he ever does I'll remember the baby oil /alcohol/hydrogen peroxide advice. Thank you for taking the time to post these tips.

I was looking for a place to learn Hindi a while back and came across http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/ . I'm not Indian so I have no idea if it's accurate but I'll assume it's an accurate and professional website, it looks like a good resouce to me. I'm not sure if it's completely free as I didn't go very far with my studies but there seems to be some decent beginners lessons and even more stuff if you're willing to pay. It's a very nice and interesting website and if I remember correctly there are even many audio samples which helps when you have no idea how to pronounce things. Maybe some day I will resume my study of Hindi but as for right now maybe it will help one of the fine members of this online establishment :angel:

I don't know why but I never liked the Harry Potter books or movies.. they seem to be very popular but never did seem to appeal to me. I haven't read much in the last few years, but there's no doubt that my favourite book "trilogy" ever is Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. The trilogy was just perfect for my tastes, dry humour, science fiction, witty stuff. I loved it and recommended it to everyone I knew, of course with my luck everyone I knew who tried reading the book after my recommendation (first one, which is one of the most popular novels in Britain according to what I've read). hated it. Made me feel like a Maroon! I have my towel handy and at the ready in case of emergency twenty four seven.And, the H2G2 movie was really, very, extremely, incredibly bad. I waited years for that thing and it was a load 'o pig shlop!I really wanted to read the LOTR books, I loved the movies, but after seeing them it was hard for me to read the book, I knew what was going to happen and it was hard to be interested in the book that way. Stupid movies!

During the summer in Eastern Canada (and possibly elsewhere, but doubtful since there aren't too many recipes on google) a common soup is eaten. This soup has the humble but slightly odd name of Hodge Podge. Hodge Podge according to a dictionary stands for a motley assortment of things, and this is exactly what Hodge Podge is. It came about as a use for the abundance of fresh vegetables available to us here during the summer. The soup is very simple, and requires very little detailed instruction. You need only a few ingredients and it's very flexible. It's commonly made with Potatoes Green/Yellow String Beans Peas Milk Flour Spices (Salt/Pepper) Butter You could probably throw in any vegetable you want. The thing is, it's almost a complete necessity that the vegetables are right out of the garden. New potatoes before the skins become overly developed, string beans fresh off the plant, and peas the same. The recipe is simple, but that is because all of the flavour is in the fresh vegetables. That's what you aim for with the soup. You don't want to over power it. It will not taste the same with frozen vegetables. It will taste okay, naturally, with butter and milk, but I wouldn't call it true Hodge Podge. You simply prepare the vegetables by boiling them together in a pot of water, you drain the water, you add the butter, milk, salt and pepper, you slowly reheat so the milk is hot without boiling, and you add some flour, stirring quickly to thicken it to your taste. Don't worry ,the flour shouldn't lump up in milk as it does in some water based dishes. It's an absolutely divine treat if you're lucky enough to have a garden available. Yum!

That sounds like a delicious soup and I think I'll make it some time soon. Sounds like a pretty flexible soup which is good as I often just throw in things that I have available. I'll bet it is exceptionally tasty using fresh out of the garden vegetables. I can't wait to try it. Yum! If you have any more recipes or meal ideas feel free to post. One thing I really love... is food.

Looks like I should have kept going with my Hindi learning. That reminds me, I have, well I found a cool site a long time ago for people to learn some basic Hindi, and no not one of those tourist cheat sheets! I will post it later to go alongside the free Chinese lessons already available. Looks like a lot of you are already living in India though, so it might be rather useless! I learned a few things from it but not very much. Looks like I'm rambling, well I don't want my post to be deleted for being too short! I've always expected the US to lose it's power, as most countries don't reign as the superpower forever. I just hope India and China will be friendly to my country of Canada. We haven't been too rude to you two, have we?? I sure hope not!

Here's a recipe and some tips for a classic poutine. It's an extremely common food where I come from. It might scare some of you away with it's horrific amount of calories. In high school this was a staple in the cafeteria and I remember eating it almost every day for lunch (can you imagine??) The Great Canadian Poutine This dish originated in Quebec, but it's very popular in N.B. - trust me on that! A poutine generally consists of a few basic ingredients. French Fries (Chips) Cheese Curds Gravy While people have strong opinions on the specifics of what a poutine should be like, you can make it how you want it using those ingredients. I'd say it's preferred to use medium cut fries, made from fresh unpeeled new potatoes from the garden, but any type of frozen french fries with work, and in fact many fast food places use thin shoe string cut fries, or even large steak cut fries. Cheddar cheese curds are the preferred type of cheese, but like anything, you can use whatever you have. Grated cheddar or mozerella cheese tastes fine. Sometimes they use garlic cheese curds. Gravy from what I've tasted is typically chicken with a little bit of spiciness. You can use whatever you want, beef or chicken, a can of gravy, leftovers from your thanksgiving turkey, it all tastes pretty good. Depending on the gravy, I often sprinkle some chili pepper flakes on top. This is not common I don't think, but I like it. The Directions: You just deep fry the french fries, put them on a plate when done, put cheese on top, pour gravy over and enjoy. You can oven cook them too, but it's not quite the same as you'd expect. FRENCH FRY TIP: I've deep fried a lot of french fries freshly cut from new potatoes, and you should wait until they are browning up in the oil before removing. They will deceive the newbie by becoming crisp but not brown, when you remove them, they will go soggy. This doesn't apply to frozen fries, since they're a completely different beast. And there you have it, The Poutine. Simple, not fancy by any means, but very comforting.

I find electronics projects very interesting, and have always wanted to learn about it and building things for a hobby, I even have a book about electronics projects, but to be honest I wouldn't even know start. I can splice wires together and thats about it. While I'd love to learn things, Sadly I think your projects of your skill level would be way over my head

I haven't received any spam messages on this forum yet, which is good, but I expect to receive some sometime as I get spam on smaller forums. Spam is really annoying!