The Simpleton

Lol it's no surprise that anwiii doesn't like football I haven't watched many matches either. In fact I missed the finals, coz it started at midnight over here. I didn't feel it was worth losing my sleep for, so I caught the match on youtube in the morning. In some ways it was a special world cup (shock exits, paul, etc) but it was also a bit boring to be honest. Something special was missing and I hope the next one covers it up.

Lol these countries have a good reason to hate Paul but they could be satisfied with the fact that Paul won't be alive till the next world cup. Octopuses live for around three years and Paul is already 2 1/2 years old. So unless someone is planning to implant Paul's brain in some other octopus, the next world cup will most probably be prediction-free!

Hmm now the discussion is shifting towards whether or not open source is beneficial to the economy or not. I'll just say a quick thing regarding this. Open source fans will fiercely maintain that it is very beneficial to the users who cannot afford to pay for quality software (either that or they do not want to pay). Commercial software vendors will say that they are losing their business due to the open source market which doesn't earn much and is ruining the game for everyone else. Wouldn't it be better if there was some sort of balance between these two communities? The pricing would come under control and at the same time people wouldn't be restricted for choice at any given time. I'm not sure what this "balance" means exactly, but it's a small possibility that could help both the communities support each other.Coming back to google, it's not as if they've ditched Windows completely. They're just trying out new measures to increase their security and it's a good decision that they've taken. Mac already gets a lot of publicity on its own, thanks to Apple.So let Linux hog the limelight for now

Then God of War 2, then time to get a PS3.
All the games in PS2 seem too unrealistic now... you could have at least bought a xbox or xbox360... their games look better and you could use xBox Live in xBox360.

I've already finished God of War, am halfway through GOW2 now, and then I'll have to wait for a while before I can get to play the last one. I did indeed want to get an advanced console, but it's like buying a car - after buying it you need to have enough money to refuel it regularly, or else its useless In the same way, even if I had bought the XBox360 or PS3, I wouldn't be able to buy new games for them as they're too expensive for me. Anyway, the old games on the PS2 are still good and they were once popular -I'm just living the magic a bit late

Do you mean C++ or Visual C++? I have a Visual C++ The Complete Reference book, but it got me nowhere. It spent more time on drawing boxes using C++ than anything -- I'd much rather just make a cube and load it in via DirectX, lol.

I definitely meant the C++ book, not Visual C++ And there's much less of box-drawing in this one You can take a look at the preview here. I think you might like it a bit.

i am old school thought when it comes to looking up #'s or businesses. i think the phone with with the white and yellow pages have a lot more local resources than what you can find online. i am all for researching stuff online. in fact, that's all i do sometimes but i have to say that the phone book will always be my safe bet over trying to find what i need on the internet.

That's right - local businesses may/may not have an online presence so it's a good idea have those numbers handy. However, there's a much slimmer Yellow Pages directory available in some places and it usually holds only the local businesses' numbers and nothing else. That would be a useful resource for someone who don't need to have the entire directory but just the business numbers. And since it's slim it doesn't use up much paper either.

Wow I had no idea that the opinion about Natal was so negative! Now that I think of it, all these arguments seem true - it's very likely that Kinect will get a shaky start and MS will hurriedly make some changes to it before it becomes stable and works perfectly. Also, it might get tiring and boring after a while to play without a controller. So all we have to do is wait and see what a spectacular success/failure this turns out to be! Will be waiting for a review from those who've pre-ordered it

Here are the top 10 reasons to upgrdade to 2010 office from the microsoft site. I though this might help out some if you are looking into it!
http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/

let me know what you think!?

Thanks for the article. To be honest, there weren't many good reasons in there - as always, MS set out to prove something but just ended up generalizing the article too much. Still, it was a good read and there were at least two reasons that were satisfactory, but not enough to purchase a whole new suite again!

It is weird that XP would not allow you to install Office 2007. I have installed it for several XPs. I have tried Office 2010 too, and it is lagged but interface seems colorful. However, I did not spend too much time on it. It is said that Office 2010 has better online integration.

I've tried to install 2007 on 3 different XP machines (all SP2) but none of them were able to install it. Perhaps SP3 is the way to go to install 2007 and 2010, and maybe it could just be the fault of those three machines. In either case, I'm more happy with OpenOffice

There usually aren't that many upgrades between Office suites. It's more like bug fixes than anything -- the problem with real upgrades is that they aren't compatible with older versions.
I'm curious, though, about what Office offers you that OpenOffice doesn't. I've found OpenOffice to be the one with more features. I have the feeling whatever you're missing is there.

I use OpenOffice most of the time as well, but in some situations, MS Office seems a bit faster in dealing with the work at hand, especially with some shortcuts, so just for these situations I switch to MS Office. Otherwise there is no real need to leave OpenOffice

And the Russian secret service, don't forget! http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/It seems they just didn't believe it was secure, and demanded to inspect the source before they would consider using it.

If only the other countries had this luxury. Hmm maybe the other countries do not care too much about security like Russia does! Now it's only a matter of time before some Russian hacker leaks the code....

That makes perfect sense. I'm actually considering switching to Linux from now. Just waiting to get a new laptop for that though.

Till then you could install Ubuntu Linux inside Windows, as a separate drive. Try it out if you want You won't regret the decision.

My only issue with Linux at this point is the lack of gaming. I am a big MMORPG player and Windows developer, and sadly you can do neither using Linux. Even with WINE you deal with a lot of problems. So I actually went back to Ubuntu a couple weeks ago and did everything I could to get my Windows programs working on it. I got everything going but games (which lagged horribly) so I was forced to revert back to Windows.
If Linux (Ubuntu specifically) ever gets DirectX support I'm there and won't return to Windows again.

We're all waiting for the day when Linux finally supports gaming on a large scale. That would certainly bring in a large chunk of Windows users over to Linux. But the game developers have to start supporting Linux as well otherwise there won't be any major shift in the gamer community.

For many people the world cup was over when Brazil and then Argentina exited suddenly. After that quite a few people (including an octopus) expected that Spain would win easily over the Netherlands. They did win, but not exactly in style. Spain won the world cup but they certainly got a good fight from the opposition. Still, they deserve the victory, so congratulations Spain! This was a weird world-cup in many ways and I'm glad it's finally over and I'm even more glad that it went off peacefully. That's an important thing for the host country. So where is the next world cup gonna be? Lol I'm so weak on Soccer GK

Project Natal, which was widely talked about when it announced, now has a name - Kinect. It was unveiled at E3 recently, and what was evident from the presentation was that Kinect can only be enjoyed in casual games or "family" type games. That means hardcore gamers will have to wait for a while before they can dream of playing their fav genre games. All we have for now are games like Tennis, Dance Master, Dance Central, etc. (List of Games using Kinect)So while it may seem exciting to play a game without actually touching any controller, we have to wait before we get any "real" games using this technology. There is also the Playstation Move to look forward to, but it looks like as for now, nothing can beat the Wii when it comes to breaking the rules of traditional console gaming.

I'm still surprised this thread hasn't been moved to the sports section. Anyway, today's the final so let's not talk about that It's wonderful that Spain and Holland, which figure in this poll, are contending in the final today. For some weird reason, I'm hoping Holland will win, because Spain was one of the favourites from the very beginning and an upset in the final would be cool So here's hoping Holland will have the last laugh in the last cup of this decade.

I'm sure google did not decide Linux for the sake of promotion . In any case, I'm not so sure about how secure linux could be either. There's gotta be security flaws in it and considering that the code is open it'll be easier to spot. My guess is google should pool in some resources for modifying the OS source code itself and have a custom linux OS with a little more security. Though, RHEL and the type might already be highly secure.

Lol the crackers can't just inject malicious code on a Linux machine just because they can modify the original source code. Cracking a Linux machine takes much more skill than it does for Windows. Have you used Linux before? If so you might have noticed that visiting malicious websites from inside Linux doesn't affect your system at all, and you can try executing Windows' worms and get away with it Plus it's super-fast and many popular Windows applications run comfortably inside Linux. So there are many good reasons to use Linux over Windows. In some aspects Mac OS X is much better, but Linux is free while you need to pay a premium for a licensed OS X.

@rob: It's excellent that of all companies, Google decided to take this step, because it's the biggest one out there and this might encourage smaller companies to follow their lead. Ultimately this could mean a large increase in the user-base of both Linux and OS X.

Hello there Carl - welcome to the forums! You've joined at a very good time, as our reputed myCENT system is back online, so each post you make will fetch you some good virtual money which you can use to purchase some quality hosting and domain services.If you get lost in the large forum, feel free to open a thread in the relevant section about your doubt and one of our members will get to is ASAP. I hope you have a good time in the forums Happy posting!

I've got a few phone books, and still get a new one delivered each year. And, remarkably, I still use them I find it a lot easier to open the phone book and look up someone's name and number, or a business name and number, than start my PC, load BT's website and search there. While they do use up a lot of paper, they are very useful, and they get recycled afterwards. Making it possible to opt-out of receiving one, or make it an opt-in service, could be a good idea. However, me and many others would still be requesting them.

It's true - there are still people who feel the need for these books, like you do. So maybe it would be useful to find out how many people need these books and then only those people could request for these books to be delivered. Making these books out of recycled paper is further a good measure to conserve paper. So instead of simply delivering the books to each and every person, it would be better to inform people in some way (ex. through their phone bill) that if they need these books, they should place a request (or order! ) and only then will they receive it.

I'm a vegetarian and although I wouldn't call myself to be fully fit and healthy, I'm not in a bad shape. I eat lots of food and junk food as well (all vegetarian of course) and never felt the need for meat - either for nutrition or for variety. I know in some places of the world it's hard to get a good choice of vegetarian foods, but luckily I'm in a place where the vegetarian population is pretty strong so there's no dearth of variety. As for who will live longer, frankly I'm not bothered because during old age, most people would be eager to die soon than to live a few more years of suffering

I totally agree. In my place about 8 years back, we were given the option of either getting Telephone books or CDs. I of course chose the CDs but my grand parents made me go get the book. In any case, I haven't even seen the phone books for a long time ! God knows what happened to them!

Hmm I haven't heard of the option to get the directory in a CD, but that's a very good idea. If only it could be implemented everywhere with ease. At least in some countries the books are going to last for few more years before people get bored of them entirely. I just hope this happens fast so that we can use that paper for some other useful purpose.

I've always liked "C++ The Complete Reference". The "complete reference" series has a great track record in bringing out good books and this one has been superb as well. It starts well with the basics and can go at a blistering speed if you don't watch out. So if you can keep up with the pace then this one is a really good choice. I think there's a preview available at Google Books as well although I'm not sure of that entirely.

I've always had a liking for Octopuses , and Hail Paul sounds a lot better than hail Mani. So, go go go Paul ! We're with you ! Waiting for the day when you enter Wall Street

Hail Paul does indeed sound better but there are a lot of Germans who want to eat Paul because the prediction psychologically damaged the German team in their game! So Paul better watch out as there are Germans in Wall Street too

Welcome back fermin25 - you've returned at the right time, exactly when the myCENT system has sprung back to life You've already received answers to your questions so I won't answer them again, but I'd just like to add that while nothing big has changed, you may notice that everything is not stable yet and a few bugs creep up now and then. So Xisto hasn't completely changed to KS - the process is still going on and when we finally manage to iron out all bugs, then you can triumphantly say, I'm home!

Phone books (telephone directories) used to be a common sight in every home in almost every part of the world. The thick books were helpful to quickly find someone's number,but nowadays its a tedious process to find a number using that book!Finding a number online or just asking someone else seems to be an easier way. And realizing this, seven cities in Canada have decided that they won't be publishing phone books anymore, unless someone requests for one. They felt that this would save a lot of paper, and they're right. In any case, most phone books remain unused these days and so this is a good idea which other countries should follow as well.Of course there will still be some people who may need them as they can't rely on the internet for everything, but even then it's not hard to make a call to the operator and find out the number, right? So let's hope others follow the example set by these cities and save huge amounts of paper soon.

This was a little interesting news. Google is blaming the recent security breaches in China on the Windows operating system. Now they're suggesting that employees switch to either Linux or Mac OS X for better security. That's a really sensible decision on Google's part, although this hasn't been confirmed officially yet. The employee who revealed this news preferred to remain unnamed. Apparently, now the CIO's permission is required to get a new Windows system!

Were not doing any more Windows. It is a security effort, said one Google employee.
Many people have been moved away from [Windows] PCs, mostly towards Mac OS, following the China hacking attacks, said another.

New hires are now given the option of using Apples Mac computers or PCs running the Linux operating system. Linux is open source and we feel good about it, said one employee. Microsoft we dont feel so good about.

In early January, some new hires were still being allowed to install Windows on their laptops, but it was not an option for their desktop computers. Google would not comment on its current policy.

Full article at: http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/

I think this is a great way to promote Linux - if the world's top company feels Linux is better than Windows, the ordinary folks should think about using it too

Paul the octopus has become a celebrity and it's no surprise that there are others who want to have a share of the fame as well. So now there are a lot of other fortune-telling animals/birds out there and everyone wants to hog the limelight. In any case, Paul will remain at the top and as you may already know, Spain is Paul's favourite to win the world cup now. There have been some other predictions which second Paul's decision, but another 'celebrity' who is a parrot from Singapore has predicted that the Netherlands will win. The parrot's name is Mani, and it has had a perfect prediction record just like Paul. But now their predictions contradict each other and one of them is bound to be wrong.There are still 10 hours for the final match to begin. Who will win? No I'm not asking about Spain or Holland, but about Paul and Mani!

Oh my, you guys have completely diverted away from the topic. No wonder you continued talking about this in the chatroom as well. You should have created a new thread instead of filling this one with advanced mathematical theories I'm a stranger to that so I won't comment on that. All I want to know is if there's been a myCENT update since yesterday or not?

Ah so finally we are back on track Thanks a lot OpaQue for all the hard work you've put in through all these days. It was a sweet surprise to wake up in the morning and see my account suddenly swimming in myCENTs I did a quick calculation and found out that the quality of my posts is around 12 cents per post So I guess it's time to do some real posting from now onwards. So see you all in the forum and I hope the new system comes out of BETA soon enough!