The Simpleton

I don't have the capacity to pay through paypal, which is the reason why I ended up on these forums in the first place Actually things were going on well before the forum upgrade; I was earning myCENTs at a healthy pace and one of the two accounts needed just $0.27 more to complete the payment, while the second account needed $6.66, which I was planning to get within three days. But this unexpected change occurred and my plans were spoiled. I wish there had been an announcement of some sort so that members like me could try and earn some quick dollars before the system got down. Well anyway, let bygones be bygones. I'll write to the support team and see what they can do, and in the meantime I'll keep an eye out for the myCENTs. Everything seems to be happening unexpectedly over here

Don't worry - twitter has been restored already, and this is a bit stale news, but still, it's news!

 

Twitter was hacked yet again (this is the third time, if I remember right), this time by some turkish cracker, which forced everyone's "followers" to be reset to zero. (EDIT: What the cracker did was to force users to follow others; so the admins reset the counters to zero) The funniest thing about this was that many celebrities became scared that they'd lost their popularity all of a sudden While some were sensible enough to realise that something was wrong with the site, there were a handful who were almost hysterical. I read all this in the paper so I don't exactly remember who reached the hysterical stage, but there were definitely a lot of them.

 

Since no one posts much private info on twitter, I guess there's not much to lose even if the hacking was serious, but still it stands to expose that the most popular sites are always the most unsafe to be on. I dunno when this incident occurred but it was fixed pretty quickly by the admins.

 

So, did anyone of you notice that you suddenly had no one to follow you?

I've got two hosting accounts over here - a basic account and a pro(?) account($6.66). Both of them are now overdue and I have started receiving the overdue notices for the first account today. So in two days that account will be suspended and I'll be slapped a late fee. All my myCENTs are here in the forum, accumulating over the days. Does anyone have an idea when the script will start again? I paid off a late fee just around a week back and now I don't want to pay it for two accounts again!!!

If only people refrained themselves from posting too much private information on Facebook, then it wouldn't matter at all even if FB changed the terms every single day. But even after so many years, people haven't learned their lessons and are still posting too much private information on the net, in an attempt to keep in touch with their friends, or as in most cases, to show off. They don't seem to care for the consequences that follow and that's why FB is playing with their information as they like. I've stopped using all FB apps and don't put any personal info on there. The only thing I use it for is to keep in touch with long lost friends. And I've been fine. Yes, I may be missing all the fun on farmville and mafia wars, but I could always create a duplicate account to play those games

@Nitin: While it's true that Ubuntu has changed the default layout of the window buttons to the left, it's very flexible. You can change the default theme and shift back the buttons to the right. I think this facility is not available in Mac? Not sure though. This is the one good thing about Ubuntu and Linux in general - they're flexible and allow you to customize everything; the users just need to know how to do it - that's all....

Hmm so now we have this toolbar too? I'm not such a big fan of these toolbar things, although they're supposed to be really useful. But I still think life would be better without these things making everything slow. I'm on broadband so maybe I haven't noticed such a big difference yet but I do access the site through mobile sometimes and I'm sure I will feel the pinch at that time. Is there any way for the users to disable this toolbar? I haven't seen any such facility so far....but it would be nice coz then only those members who feel it's useful would be using it and the rest of the members would have their old site back.

I've posted this news in a creative writing site, and since our forum rules say no copying, I'll re-write the whole thing. I hope that's ok - I'm not writing this news for myCENTs - I just want to know whether I'm right or not.

 

I got the book And Thereby Hangs A Tale by Jeffrey Archer delivered to me today, and I just finished reading the first story, titled, Stuck on You. As I was halfway through the story, I couldn't help noticing that it was strangely similar to another story that I had read long back. Thanks to Google, I found out that the title of that story is The Case of the Sharp-Eyed Jeweler, written by Nicolas Bentle. This story can be found as part of a collection of detective stories titled Six Detective Stories by S.E.Paces.

 

The overall plot of both stories is entirely different, but a particular piece, which involves the stealing of a precious diamond, has clearly been "inspired" from the old story. Now, Stuck on You is marked with an asterisk in Archer's book, indicating that it has been based on real incidents. So is it possible that someone just narrated this old story to Archer, or that someone used the concept of that old story in real life?!! I'm not sure what to think. I haven't read any of Archer's short stories before so I don't know if such a thing is common. What do you people think? I could have given the plot details of both stories here, but as of now I don't think that's needed? I can give the details if needed, though.

Just when I thought Facebook was getting safer with the introduction of custom privacy settings for most of the content, they messed it up again! This seems to have become a hobby for them - to change the rules every month or so Now the latest change is that you have to link all your interests to "Pages", otherwise you don't get to display your interests at all! I think the same rule applies to location, movies, etc. Either accept the pages suggested by Facebook, or leave these fields blank. And these pages are completely public, so no matter what your settings are, people visiting those pages can see that you're a part of it, and there goes your privacy! This is a ridiculous change and I hope it gets fought against. I've erased all those fields as I prefer to keep my privacy, but it'll be irritating to see a blank profile. It's not that big an issue but the old system was just fine and there was really no need to go and change it in such a silly way. If you haven't checked your FB account yet go and take a look - who knows how many pages you're linked to.....

When I was purchasing my netbook, most dealers would point out to brands like Dell, HP, Acer, but out of the 10 shops I enquired in, at least 6 of them seemed to think Acer was the best in the netbook category (I hope by 'mini series' you meant 'netbook' ). If you're looking for a notebook (standard sized laptop) then you'd better stay safe with better-known brands like Dell and HP as they have better after-sales service compared to the remaining brands. If you're looking for just a netbook, then I think there's nothing wrong with the Acer brand as it has a good mix of options you get. I bought the Samsung N128 netbook in spite of a lot of people advising me not to, and so far it hasn't given me any sort of problems. But to stay safe, stick to the well-known brands

ohhhh that was a fun one too. i did i quick search and found it HERE!

Wow thanks for the find anwiii This was a cool game and I took 15 minutes when I first played it way back. But I solved it in under 2 minutes now - looks like my brain works sometimes

yuk, the characters are so ugly, my frogs are much more better.

Well it's an old game and cannibals aren't meant to look cute anyway Besides, this one seems much easier than the frogs one.

Hehe, talking of google, there's AdBlock for Google Chrome, but Google was sneaky and evil as always and made it not work in Youtube.Search... and Mail... and Analytics (damn I thought I only used one of its services). I have a hunch that some day, aliens will come to earth and destroy Google and Chuck Norris, leaving us defenseless. Oh wait, we'll still have mickey d's ../../public/style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif

All corporations are meant to be EVIL in someway or the other I haven't tried AdBlock but it's no surprise that Google won't block its own ads. It would severely deter its own source of income. I sometimes wonder if Google hasn't earned enough money already; why are they still pestering people with ads?!!

And if the aliens came and destroyed Google then I guess ordinary people can say goodbye to their dream sites coz no one will be able to find them without Google

I feel like the whole netbook market is just to make people buy more stuff.

 

Using over produced parts, slap some new processor, hard drive together, they are marketing a device of the tomorrow with yesterday's technology.

 

I think iPads and other personal portable pads are the future. But with their price tags of $499 or more it is no wonder netbooks are still popular and wanted by many users. Devices like iPads last up to 6 hours, touch screen based with almost instant ON. Windows still takes time to boot like it was a miniature laptop with power hunger.

 

And so with this in mind I say there's no such good, better or best netbooks out there. There are just netbooks.

 

Don't get me wrong. I love the ultra portability and love the fact that I can do many more things with netbooks. I manage systems and networks remotely so I really like the idea that I can carry around small yet powerful device to manage my tasks which iPads can't even begin to wonder about. I just hate to be taken advantage because the manufactures still want to watch for their bottom end--get rid of older and scrap parts before producing the device of 22nd century.

 

I would love to see a device featured in Star Trek The Next Generation TV series--small about 5 x 7 display with touch screen, holds gigs and terabytes of information and can be synchronized to the main computer at a touch of your finger. And is as thin as the current iPad--but with better operating system.

I don't know much about the story behind the parts used in netbooks, but all I can say is that it is their price and performance which draws people in. I'll take myself as an example. I bought my first netbook - the Samsung N128 at the very low price of Rs.13k (around $285. Now, wouldn't you call that a good price for a computer which gives around 4-5 hours of battery backup and can handle most of the everyday applications? I bought this with my own money, which is another reason I preferred a netbook instead of a notebook.

 

The iPad does seem interesting but knowing Apple, it won't let users to do anything fun without shelling out extra money. Also, outside the US, almost all of the Apple products cost double or even triple of their original price. So there's not much of an international market. Netbooks on the other hand, remain sensibly priced in almost all countries. Before the parts used in them show their true colours, the users will most probably dump them. For example, students don't need to use netbooks after they complete their education; they buy powerful notebooks instead. So very few people are actually thinking about using netbooks for a longer period of time, and that's fine, because at the low prices, no one expects them to be long-lasting anyway.

I wouldn't be surprised if Google made deals with Microsoft, and integrated Bing and Yahoo etc into their system. ../../public/style_emoticons/default/laugh.gif

Lol yeah there might be a chance for that, especially when MS and Yahoo are desperately trying to eat into Google's market share. They might eventually realize that they can't get any decent share, and the sensible thing to do would be to shake hands with google and integrate their search engines together, so that they can eat the profits together Hmm that seems to the thing which is most likely to happen in the coming days. No surprises there!

I just read in today's paper that over 50,000 websites have started using the Facebook widget in their sites. On trustworthy sites like ours it may be a good thing as it makes things easier, but on some sites it may be dangerous to login using these widgets as we do not know if our accounts will be safe or not. Thus as a precaution I'm staying away from such widgets.

I think a lot of members are directly posting their replies to this thread without reading what the others have said - at least four members have repeated the "25 posts per day" thing Hmm I guess not many people have the time or patience (or both) to go through 8 pages of reports before posting theirs! I'm looking forward to the day when the default settings are changed and we get a fully customized forum!@-Sky-: I heard somewhere that even the stable versions of V3 are full of bugs? I dunno how far this is true though. So far except for minor hiccups nothing seems to be going on wrong over here.

Hi!
@The Simpleton

If you have only 512MB RAM on your computer, you are better off working with Windows XP or Ubuntu 9/10, unless you are willing to consider a hardware upgrade by adding more memory. Even with Windows XP, it is worth considering an upgrade because 512MB is quite low if you browse through websites that feature Flash content and anything memory intensive.

The difference in battery time can be attributed to a bigger battery. If you have access to both computers, you can look up the specs printed onto the battery (usually on the side facing the inside of the computer) and you can figure out if it is really a better battery that is providing higher run time on a single charge. If it is, you can easily get a newer battery with a higher capacity for your netbook. In either case, why don't you try getting yourself an ARM-based netbook? They last so much longer and might even get you through the whole day without having to hook up to a power socket.

BTW, this post is a duplicate of:
http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/

Sorry to confuse you - my PC has 512MB RAM and I mentioned it only to compare it with the netbook. My netbook has the usual 1GB RAM and that is why I wanted to know which OS would be better for it.

BTW, this post is a duplicate of:http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/

Yes this happened because of that flood control thingy - first it told me I wasn't allowed to post, and when I tried to post again after 10 minutes it registered both posts.

The "Bord Message" flood control error is still rampant I opened a thread sometime ago and it gave me an error and told me to wait for a while. I waited, and tried to post the thread again, and it ended up in a double-posting of the same thread!

Don't get confused by the title; I'm not asking you to pick three operating system and rank them I just want to know your opinion as to which OS performs best on standard netbooks. I'm talking about the general config - 1GB RAM, 160GB HDD, etc. I currently have a Samsung N128 and it's running Ubuntu 9.10 and Windows XP. From the former I get a battery backup of around 4 hours on average load and on XP I get a little lesser, but almost the same. But then my friend who bought the same netbook but just a month later (and model number N148) had Windows 7 pre-installed and he's getting an hour more! So I was wondering if Windows 7 is actually a better OS than the two I already have. I know it's not resource-hungry like Vista, and it's running just about fine on my 512MB RAM PC. So will it be better to remove XP and put in 7 on my netbook? Or is good ol' XP still considered the best for netbooks?

People, by nature, crave freebies and they get attracted by promotional offers that give you something for free in exchange for a purchase.

You're right - we've become addicted to freebies. In theory you might say people will stop encouraging piracy when prices come down, but thanks to this addiction they might actually not be able to give up the habit. Old habits die hard, and this is perhaps the most addictive habit of them all

Was Iron Man a huge hit as the other marvel characters? I guess not. But still the producers want to milk out everything possible out of the superhero brands. I didn't watch Iron Man until I watched Sherlock Holmes and I watched IM to see Robert Downey Jr. But the first movie wasn't too impressive and I'm not getting any hopes up either. Like many people I'll wait for a good review before watching this one

Lol that's really interesting to imagine Just a few hours ago I opened a thread about how google buys all domain names related to its brand; it's fiercely protective of itself, not allowing anyone else to come close. I don't think that's the quality of a good religion!

Another small suggestion - is it possible to change the font of the word 'sutra', and make it more clear? We already have a lot of members misunderstanding the meaning of the word and the last thing we need is someone reading it wrong. Of course, after visiting the site one may not have doubts about the word, but still it would be more appropriate if the font was more clear.

One post every fifteen minutes? I believe that was a random problem faced by some members (including me) at some parts of the day. There were times when I couldn't post for half-an-hour, but usually I was able to make 2-3 posts within 15 minutes. Anyway, that is the thing of the past - I can see that the new system is much more efficient and encouraging. I gave myself a gap of two hours and once again the counter has reset to 25 posts So when we take a break, the counter does too

Odds are it needs to be reloaded as I can see the error as well I let the admin know.

Thanks - I'm glad to know that I'm not the only one facing the problem; first I thought it happened due to the suspension of the account. Well anyway I'll be looking forward to using the auto-installer soon because I can't figure out the database step in the manual install!

yes i did try fantastico and it gave a similar error. and i hope "no more upgrades" doesn't mean no more access at all! I wouldn't mind the old version either because most of the CMS allow automatic upgrades so all I need is the one-click install facility. Anyway, here is the error I get for fantastico:

Fantastico is not installed at the default location /usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/fantastico. Either move the Fantastico directory from it's current location to /usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/fantastico OR enable ioncube loaders in WHM -> Tweak settings.