The Simpleton

I haven't received any emails like these and I know I wouldn't be fooled anyway. This is 2010, and by now most people who use Paypal do know that such emails are fake and only the most unsuspecting of them all will fall for such traps in this day and age. Still, it's best to be cautious so be safe everyone!

Good for you that you're participating actively now Just keep up the activity and you'll be surprised when you suddenly see a shower of myCENTs in your account!

Hmm this is a strange problem but I think many people have faced it before. I'm not sure of the solution but I would suggest trying to re-install your drivers. To find out if it is a hardware problem, try using an Ubuntu Live CD to boot into Ubuntu and check if the touchpad problem still exists. If yes, then it's a hardware problem. If it's running smoothly, then it's just the driver problem in Windows.

Hey Shahrukh, your designs are really good-looking I liked the splatter design a lot. As you said, such designs are becoming common these days, but it's still good to see them anyway! Keep up the good work and hope to see more wonderful designs from you in the coming days. After you're done working on your site, how about designing something for Xisto perhaps?

I wouldn't use such a service for all of my work, but for some part of my work which isn't very important, sure, I would consider using cloud computing. But I don't see the point in paying for the service, because there are many sites providing cloud computing services for free, with a reasonable amount of space. Microsoft offers 25GB for free if I'm not wrong? For people who don't like storing lots of private data on an unknown server, this is more than enough.

MS was never the most innovative company - they're just smart people who seem to do the right things at the right time, althoughtheir timing seems to be going wrong nowadays. Their insistence that their products are good and the other products are up to no good is laughable. It's sad that they're still allowed to ship IE along with Windows. Had it not been for this single factor, I'm positive that IE wouldn't figure in the top 5 browsers list. Anyway now nothing can be changed; let's see how far IE trots along and what it does with HTML5.

@zanzibarjones: That's a neat, simple, yet good-looking sig I like the fact that it's not too complex, and at the same time seems so deep and mysterious. @Maggot: Why don't you put this in another thread, instead of this thread? Some people would call it hijacking the thread

I haven't been here for a while so I'm not sure how frequently the myCENTs are getting updated, but when the myCENT V4 system was first introduced, it took 1-2 days for the script to run an update. I see that you've joined on the 16th of August, so I'd say wait for just one more day, and in the meantime make sure that the email address you used to register at Xisto is the same one that you used to register for the forums. The email id is more important than the information provided, so double-check that aspect. Since activity has increased since the new script has arrived, it might be taking a little longer to run an update. This however, shouldn't stop you from posting, so keep posting good content and you'll get a whole pile of myCENTs all at once

I would indeed trust you if you had been talking about the old, "fat" PS3, which is no longer available in markets (at least the ones accessible to me). The newer version of the PS3, the "slim" one, does not support PS2 games any longer so that is why it doesn't make sense for those who want to play the old PS2 games. For those who want to enjoy only the latest games (and these will be in the majority), the new PS3 is indeed a good choice and will provide good value for their money.

Your dream is perhaps far away from turning into reality my friend And I think you already know this yourself. As I said in my earlier post, dual-sim phones don't pack in too many features and the one which you're asking for would be really tough to find. The largest maker of mobile phones - Nokia- is introducing its first dual-sim phones C1 and C2, and the features offered along with them are laughable. It's basically a dual-sim phone and nothing else. So all we can do for now is wait, and wait some more until features+dual-sim combine together in a good manner.

I didn't mention that China would overtake the US but I did mention that the current standings will remain the same for at least five years. 2050 is a long way away and we can't predict exactly what economic changes might take place by then, but it does seem inevitable that China will overtake the US soon, and even if it doesn't, Japan, India or even Germany and Russia could overtake the US, should some severe economic changes take place. I was a little surprised over UK's position over Russia as well, but wasn't too surprised to see France and Italy; they aren't someone to be messed with!

@zanzibarjones: First let me say 'Welcome to the forum' You needn't have any fears of myCENTs updating a whole year after you make the posts That particular user might have registered in 2009 and could have started posting recently. By 'first mycents', the user could have also meant 'my first mycents after the forum upgrade'. The myCENTs system was down for more than a month so that user could be referring to this. Rest assured that your myCENTs will be updated regularly and as fast as the admin permits the server to! So, keep posting

Ah, yet another old discussion brought back to life.... In the five years since this thread was started, MS-Word and the entire Office package has undergone a major renovation and although I hate to admit it, the package certainly has improved from the previous versions. It still can't beat the number of features and stability offered by OpenOffice, but comparing it with older versions, the present versions are a little better. I wouldn't recommend MS-Office over OpenOffice, but for someone insistent on using MS, it's better to pick the later versions.

I've stayed away from the site for a while because there weren't many new topics and also,the myCENTs were updating slowly but now it looks like there's lots of activity and the update process has become speedier, so these are perfectly good reasons for anyone to stick to the site and start posting

In a way you're right. So long as people stick to surfing safe sites and stay away from unknown sites, they're safe. It's important to keep your browser updated but IE doesn't bother you about this, and you're safe only until no one realises that you're using a browser with holes in it. So if people think they can control their surfing, then sure, IE is a good browser. But if they're daring surfers who don't mind looking at new sites, then it's high time they upgrade to a more secure browser.

Ha ha I've asked myself this same question many times over - is it possible to justify yourself as a computer engineer without being good at programming?! I haven't found the answer myself, because I'm interested in some aspects of programming (those pertaining to web designing). However, some parts of computer engineering do not require a sound knowledge of programming. You will still find that a basic knowledge is most certainly required no matter which type of work you choose to do. Being able to understand code may not always help you out, so being able to modify it yourself may help you out of a few sticky situations. Coding can get confusing and irritating at times, but once you understand it patiently, you'll be richly rewarded

Wow it's lucky that you didn't lose your facebook account or anything like that but it looks like in this case it wasn't exactly hacked, and since you didn't mention what that link was, I can only guess that some application sent it. I have two facebook accounts too and I use one for games and other applications while the other one which I use for friends is completely clear of any sort of applications. I think it's a good idea to remove all applications from your main account and use it only for networking, while you can try out all sorts of crazy apps with your other account It's up to you in the end, but in this way you can relieve yourself of this sort of worries.

You created this thread in March and I'm sure you've come a long way since then in learning English. Have you appeared for the TOEFL yet? If so, how did it go? If not, when is it? I think you write English well enough, and unless you are aiming to be a professional writer, there isn't anything too wrong with your language Sure, it could do with some cleaning up in a few places but you're doing just fine and from what I've heard, TOEFL isn't really too tough to crack. So I'm sure you can handle it! English is a foreign language for me as well and I know how important it is to keep up with the rest of the world. But as long as you're using the language regularly, I don't think you'll face any problems at all.

Hi, I haven't tried installing two linux distributions alongside one another, but I have a general idea which just might work, although I haven't tried it myself. Linux distributions normally require three partitions - one each for the 'root' and 'home' directories, and one for the 'swap' area. You mentioned that you have already installed Mandriva. Did you do this automatically, i.e., without configuring the partitions, or did you specify the partitions yourself? In any case, here's my idea: when you're running setup (of either Mandriva or SUSE), look for the screen where you are able to select the partitions manually. Make sure you have free space on your hard disk, and from this free space, create six empty partitions such that two of them can be root partitions (i.e. of larger size for holding system files), two are for the home partitions (can be any size you prefer) and two are swap areas (at least double the amount of your RAM). It's best if you create three partitions while installing one distro and leave the remaining free space as it is, so that when you come back for installing the other distro, you can use that free space to create new partitions again. I hope I'm not confusing you! It's all about creating partitions so that the distro is able to identify where it is being installed into. I'm guessing you weren't able to install both of them because one of the distros was filling up the entire hard disk. Try this partitions idea and post back here if you're running into any problems. Important: Make sure there isn't any important data on your hard disk!!!

Out of the three issues you've mentioned, I feel only the DRM one is the one thing that irritates a majority of the gamers. As for the remaining two, well, it's just a matter of personal choice. The developers naturally take the bigger picture into perspective and design the game in a way which they feel will appeal to most of the audience. They know they can't please everyone, but they just try to reach out to the maximum number of people, and this is why things like co-op mode are missing from most of the games. Coming back to DRM, I think it's silly and idiotic. The video game industry doesn't seem to have learnt anything from the music industry which has successfully failed in implementing DRM. Music sales are now threatened due to the restrictions put in by DRM, and now video games seem to be going the same way as well. I haven't played a PC game released after 2007 because my system doesn't have the config required, but in every magazine that I read, gamers have been complaining about the DRM restrictions heavily. Ubisoft's rule that the gamer must be online as long as the game is being played is really idiotic. What about users who don't have an unlimited internet connection? They will be facing heavy bandwidth losses. And it's also being said that pirated versions of these games do not have this requirement at all! So DRM itself is encouraging piracy! So far the only real issue about games that's bugging me is that with each year, PC gamers are required to update their PC configs to play their favourite games. I bought my PC in 2002 and it was able to run games until 2007. Such a thing seems impossible nowadays with every new game raising the bar even higher. I just hope this is sorted out and gamers aren't required to update their PCs for atleast 2-3 years in a row.

Hi I re-created my blog a few days back and I asked myself this exact same question, whether or not to put in a home page. After giving it some thought I decided to put in the home page, and I also put in links to few more pages, and the blog is just one of those links now. So what started off as a wordpress blog has now become a small, yet complete personal website. I think it's sort of fun to have different things to offer to the reader and having a home page is a great way to start. I took a look at your site just now and saw that you haven't put in a home page yet, so I think you haven't made up your mind? You do have an 'about' page but it isn't the home page for now. I'd say it would be a good idea to try out the home page idea for a few days and check if it's making any impact on your traffic stats. If you feel it's reducing your traffic, then you can always go back to the old layout. Trying out the new layout for a few days will help you decide which style suits your website more. After all, it's your site!

@Shahrukh: If this is your first domain then it might take some time for them to approve it, but usually it never takes more than a couple of days. My first domain was registered within 24 hours and after that my other domains were up and running within a few hours on the same day. So the waiting period is long just for the first domain and it's possible that yours is getting delayed due to a busy schedule or/and a long list of pending registrations. Remember that the Xisto's staff is small (yet efficient) so don't get too irritated with them. If you feel you can't wait any longer then go ahead and open a support ticket and put the status as Critical (a few members suggested 'Urgent' but I found that 'Critical' gets the fastest replies) and you will be given high priority immediately. So don't worry about it and I hope you get your domain soon enough!

I'm no economist and I don't understand the exact meaning behind this, but I just read today that China has overtaken Japan to become the world's second largest economy. Japan has been in the #2 position at least for a few decades, but now China has zoomed ahead and is sitting comfortably at the second position. The world's largest economy is still the USA, with an approximate GDP (in terms of purchasing power parity) of $13.6 trillion. China's GDP is now over $7 trillion, so it may still be a few years before it has a chance to seize the top spot. However, this latest development is testimony to the fact that China is a rising power which shouldn't be underestimated and it may have a powerful role to play in shaping the world in the coming years. Here is a list of the top 10 economies of the world as of now. This may very well be the list for at least another five years so take a good look at it!

Oops, due to my absence I couldn't report back here that the issue I talked about is resolved, i.e., the decision to remove the electronic withdrawal system has been canceled, and everything is going on as usual. Paypal did give quite a scare to the users for a few days with their email, but before they could enforce this, they decided it was better not to risk losing any more customers. It does seem they're steadily going down in India, and if they're not, it's only because there hasn't been a good alternative yet. Once people find an alternative which they like, Paypal will be in big trouble then. For now I just hope that nothing bad happens!