Hawks

I guess I didn't explain it very well. I can't get it to play in the browser or add artists. The plugin is called Fire.fm, and so far I can't get it to work either... But I haven't read how to use it. So for the moment the issue is just Last.fm in the browser.

Thanks, I'll start on that and you'll have a sketch of the sig on Friday. :)

I'll take a shot at it. [img=http://fc04.deviantart.com/fs47/f/2009/193/a/d/Sig_for_Dark_Aura_3_by_hawkxs.jpg] http://fc03.deviantart.com/fs46/f/2009/193/9/e/Avatar_for_Dark_Aura_3_by_hawkxs.jpg

Most of my friends have some of the same interests as me... And generally the same values, that's the biggest thing for me. I tend to have quirky friends who don't really fit in otherwise (those are my 'good friends') but I can count most of the people in my grade as friends. So my personality traits/values that I share with most of my friends are... Random geekiness, smart/actually care about school (although they might not always show it)/they know they need it, enjoy hockey, don't smoke/do drugs/alcohol, generally don't do illegal things, most of them are fairly athletic (though I'm not), most are band geeks. Oh and we mostly share the same music taste (classic rock/hard rock/metal) but for me I fit in the stereotype of art freak/raver/skater/scene/goth kids. Oh and I'll describe probably my best online friend: willing to argue to make his point, but also knows when you've beaten him. willing to delve into projects even if they'll never be finished for the learning experience. more into the philosophical side of things. knows a lot of random things, and wants to learn more. always has a new side to a discussion. he's made mistakes in the past and learned from them. not a very materialistic person. he's pretty awesome.

I have some $12 (apparently £13 on Amazon) 2XL 'Groove' headphones I got from Best Buy, they work decently (I'd say they're more than worth the $12) and have okayish bass. (the thing normally I use them with, a Sansa Clip mp3 player doesn't have amazing bass to begin with, but they work great with my 11 year old CD player with the TruBass or whatever it is) They come in about five different colors (I have the all black ones: http://www.amazon.co.uk/2XL-SnakeEyes-X ... 92&sr=1-43 ) The only problem I have is that one of the silicon covers came off and got a slight tear, but I fixed it with a bit of sticky tack (don't ask). I prefer the silicon ones, but you could replace them with the foam ones if you wanted (because I can't find any silicon replacement ones anywhere!) These are the only sort of headphones that'll stay on/in my ears besides the over-the-head ones. Edit: They come in 7 color combos. :roll:

so I got adobe flash, it still doesnt work, and I can't listen to any music either.

Could I get a pic of a) the firemaking emote, B) your rs char, and c) ref of items you're wearing (links to tip.it item base entries preferred)? I will attempt if I can get refs of them, preferrably before tomorrow. I will be gone for the week and if I don't have the refs you won't get the sig for another week or so. I'm planning on hand drawing it and then doing a digipaint sig of sorts, if that's okay with you.

Sweet, I won! Thanks for voting for me. :D

So I signed up for Last.fm because I found a Firefox plugin that'll play my library in the browser. I can't add any more artists to my Library though. Is there a way to get back to the 'list artists here' box, since it won't add artists when I click the 'Add to Library' button? I'm using Firefox 3.5 (although I don't have the Adobe Flash plugin, but it's not telling me I need it) and am running Windows 2000 with a restricted account (although I can install addons without admin permissions) EDIT: I'm pretty sure it's the adobe flash plugin that's needed, your thoughts? EDIT: got adobe flash, still doesn't work.

It's great, but that's my opinion from switching from IE6 to Firefox 3.5. Haven't gotten any addons yet, I need to take a look at the sticky for some good ones.

It's been fixed, my dad got ff. Facebook works great, DA does too.

*most* other sites load okay, although there are odd ones every once in a while (I haven't found more other than da, fb, and tinypic, but our local news channel's site won't load) Google, Youtube and Amazon are good (although amazon's ended support for IE6 I think because it doesn't load right, but it's a CSS issue) Errdoth, on IE6 I can't load either of them. I'm on a wired connection to a wireless network (this computer (Win2000/IE6) doesn't have a network card). The XP/IE8 has a network card and is thus a wireless connection. As of yesterday, my Wii could not connect to any WiiConnect24 updates, although it could send small bits of data back and forth at normal speeds. My DSi connects to the network okay, but I haven't tried any system update or DSiWare downloads, I think they would probably fail. The DSi does load the mobile version of Facebook though. My dad has had his work laptop constantly on in the past couple of days, but I don't think it's attached to the wireless right now and the internet is still sucking. We've restarted both computers multiple times without success, I'm going to try resetting the router next. Edit: I fiddled some with the encoding, it appears just to be loading slower. (switched from Unicode to Western European, just screwed up the accent things in the other language selections on fb) It may be of interest that images I attempt to download from DeviantART won't load on my computer (my avatar is hosted on DA, and all that shows for me is the lovely box with an x). My sig is currently hosted on ImageShack and it loads fine. Edit: Reset the router and it didn't help.

I got mad because there's a legit thing wrong with both computers and my dad's just like 'I'll look at it'... It's been going on since Thursday, I haven't been able to get into DA or facebook and my mom hasn't been able to go to the local news channel website... I think our ISP is having issues, there's no other explaination (well there is but that's the most likely one imo... otherwise it could be java and it could be that they hate ie now) spent most of the day on tif. played some guitar hero and animal crossing. and the wii was having connection issues too, i was going to look at demos for the ds but couldn't. I need to pack now, I'm going back to camp next week, leaving tomorrow.

Hawks All-Purpose Literary Writing Guide YAY FUN COLORS! Introduction This guide is going to be a big one; Im going to try to cover not just basics of writing, but also of writing an enjoyable story. I may go a little deep in my story preparations; this is because thats the part I like the best. If youre one to just write what you come up with, this guide can still help you. Anyway, before my introduction becomes too long, Im going to give you the contents. 1. Introduction 2. Outlines and Why They are Important 3. Setting Design 4. Character Design 5. Getting Ready to Write 6. Typing and Proofreading 7. Conclusion 8. Useful Things My table of contents is sort of in the middle of my introduction. This isnt the best As I go on my formatting will get better, I assure you. Outlines Outlines are the most important part of the story next to your characters. You should start by thinking up a problem that needs to be solved. It could be a characters revenge (he feels a need to kill his fathers murderer) or it could be the character is involved in an intergalactic war and has been drafted. This is what the story will revolve around, and in the end, the problem will be resolved in some way, perhaps not how the character planned. Along the way, the main character will meet others and will have to overcome obstacles in his way. These pieces of the story could be mini-climaxes; each problem has its own rising and falling action. If you write your outline in that way, you will have your story almost written for you; you just have to flesh the pieces out. Im going to define some literary terms for you so you will know what Im talking about later on. Climax: The high point of the story; it occurs at least two-thirds of the way into the story. This is where the problem is going to be solved in some way, it doesnt necessarily have to be solved at this point; but this point is where its clear how the story will end. Resolution: What happens at the very end, and how the problem is finally solved. What happens to all of the characters? Rising Action: The events that lead up to the climax. Does the character fall in love with the daughter of his fathers murderer? Does it change his views on the murder? Falling Action: The timeframe between the climax and the resolution. It is usually spent explaining where the characters are going and what they will do with their lives now. If I were to write an outline for the story of the boy avenging his fathers murder, I would start with the murder, in a prologue of sorts. Character names are sketchy at this point. Prologue: Boys father murdered by murderer. 1: Boy grows up, talks to mother and brother about father. Brother is bitter and angry, rubs off on boy. 2: Boy is near adult now. Feels hatred toward murderer. Mother doesnt want him to go, knows itll end up worse. 3: Boy leaves without mothers permission. Steals fathers sword and hunting knife. Mother and brother are saddened; brother becomes more bitter as time goes on. 4: Boy travels through the land. Learns many tricks by way of traveling performers. Earns a bit of money this way. 5: Boy learns where fathers murderer resides. Makes it a point to go there. By this time, boy is fairly well off and is successful at street arts. 6: Boy visits murderers fief. Murderer is none other that Sir insertnamehere, a well-known knight who killed boys father in a drunken rage. Boys father was a horse groom, boys older brother trained enough, so family was not compensated. 7: Boy sees Sir INHs daughter from afar. She is very pretty and not yet 17. Boy likes her very much. 8: Boy makes it a point to show off when she and friends are about. At this point boy is 19 and is living in a local inn in the fief. 9: Boys feelings toward Sir INH change as he learns of his plight from his daughter. Spends time with her, is invited to the castle on feast day. 10: Feast day. Boy is dressed in his best, and comes to the castle. Learns that Sir INH is not so well off. Boy decides that day that it would honor fathers memory not to kill the man who is repentant. (Sir INH has since sworn off alcohol). 11: The day after the feast, boy asks daughter to marry him. He has won her over with his many entertaining tricks, and she is a second child, with more freedoms to marry. She says yes. 12: The boy is hired as a court entertainer and he and his wife live in the fief for some time. Boy decides one day to return to his home with his wife to introduce her. 13: They reach the home; boys brother lives alone, and grieving over the recent loss of his mother. Brother states she died in her sleep. Boy tells brother of the repentance of Sir INH; brother is neither pleased nor angry. Brother welcomes them and says he wishes to go back with them. 14: They return to the fief. Sir INH welcomes brother as a son in law and offers him anything. Brother takes a cottage and a comfortable job as a horse groom. Rising action, in this case is the Prologue to 10. Climax is 10-11; Falling action is 11-13, and Resolution 13-14. I have what is a complete, if kind of lame story. With a little work, it could become an enjoyable story. The storyline is only one factor in a good story; there are bigger and better ones on the way. Setting Design You could of course use RuneScape. Im going to use it as an example to prove that even if you use a pre-made setting, youre going to need to make some things up as well. Take the Lumbridge Castle for instance. Its a landmark, but what if you were going to have a feast inside it, or go in the kitchen cellar? There are details in the game, but you can fudge them to give your story more feel, that you thought about it and decided the colors of Lumbridge would be black and silver, and that you have a reason for it. Not just because those are the colors in the game. Personally, I feel that RuneScape settings are good (except I think Varrock and Falador are overused as story areas), but I think you can go farther and invent your own world. What if your story doesnt work with the medieval fantasy theme that RuneScape has? You make your own. There are guides on this in various books, and Ill summarize it to you. Start with a name. Flesh it out with types of creatures, the land/water, the atmosphere, names of countries, what sort of technology it has, and the like. This will help you when you get to designing your characters. Get the details down, and the rest is fairly easy. You may not need to know what color the sky is, or if the inhabitants breathe methane. But if you need it for a later story, you have it. The characters are likely to know only their area, but they know it well, down to the number of rocks that have gotten stuck in the paddlewheel. You probably want to map your country, even if its a simple doodle, it can help you understand details youve made that otherwise you might forget. There are digital programs that can help you with this; there are also random detail generators out there that can come up with the mundane stuff for you. Character Design This is my favorite part. I usually get to into it and start drawing and then I have a character that Im not happy with because I left out this detail or that detail. You dont have to draw them to have a good idea of what the character looks like; the way Im going to show you involves lists. Start by making a form with the most important factors. These can vary due to the type of story youre writing, and you may need different details than another story. Some details are obvious, while others may be hidden and only mentioned once or twice in passing. This is similar to a character sheet in a role-playing game; sometimes I find it helpful to use one when Im designing a character because they also have skills that reflect the characters personality. Name: Age: Gender: Race: Class: Profession(s): Alignment: Religion: Height: Weight: Weaponry: Armor: Clothing: Hair Color & Style: Eye Color: Skin Color: Personality: Outlook on Life: And so on. Feel free to use this list as a starting point for your own. After you have a good list, you can add details like prefers to wear gloves with thumbs cut off or has a dragon tattoo encircling left bicep. Its easier to do this on notebook paper. You can also doodle symbols you might associate with your character, the characters face, or scars or tattoos they have. Then you can draw your character if you wish. I usually do this, they dont have to be amazing, they just have to portray the character in the way you feel the character should be portrayed. What I mean is, if your character is a cold, menacing king, he should look it. If the pixie queen is happy-go-lucky and loves her kingdom, she should look like she loves it. You can also go online and find people who are willing to draw your characters for you or digital designers to help with your character image. Getting Ready to Write Were finally there. Youve probably had an idea for some time. Write it down, follow your outline (to some extent at least), but add in things that hadnt occurred to you. Writing on notebook paper is often the easiest way because you can carry it with you and when you have the idea, you can write it down. You can also shove it full of your character and world designs and any other notes youve gathered (historically accurate samurai armor, pictures of lightsabers). If you choose to write your rough draft on the computer, I would use a simple text editor (like Notepad) rather than Word, because youre going to be editing it a lot and you dont yet need the features of a full word processor. You will eventually, so if you dont have a word processor that has a spelling and grammar check, you should get one. The link to the OpenOffice.org Suite is in the last section, but most Windows computers already have Microsoft Word on them. I think (but am not sure) that WordPad (on most XP computers) has a spell checker. Your rough draft can have alternate endings, random bits and pieces that may or may not fit, and stuff that in general is kind of random. Youll edit it later. Typing and Proofreading Youll want to type your final draft in Word/Writer, or paste it in from Notepad or wherever you had it. (Notepad may do weird things with the line breaks; make sure you have Word Wrap off before copy pasting it into Word.) Editing your draft as you type it in is an efficient way to do it. Choose the pieces you want and only type those in. After you finish, go back to the beginning and take a look at your red and green lines. I find that Word usually knows what its doing with the errors, but sometimes it is wrong, and you need to make sure that you pick the right option when you check something. A lot of grammar error fixes it suggests dont make sense in the context of the sentence; in this case just ignore Word, its better that way. Read your draft again to make sure you have no errors. If you really want to be thorough, print out a copy and have someone else read it for clarity and spelling/grammar errors. Conclusion I hope this guide has helped you in your quest for the perfect story. Im no great writer, but I understand the theory, and I hope you learn something from this. If you have questions or comments, thats what the topic is for. If you notice a (GASP!) spelling or grammatical error, tell me that too. Useful Things http://www.openoffice.org Get Writer if you don't have MS Word HeroMachine Use as a starting point for character design Punctuation 101 Guide on how to use punctuation properly

Just so you know, I thought he was Ike, but he's apparently Guy... :roll: Missed that on PR.

Anybody have ANY idea as to what's going on here? It is doing this on a Windows 2000 with IE6 and an XP with IE8. The pages load phenomenally slowly, and some don't load at all (IE gives up). In IE8, it says there is an error loading a Java object on facebook. [hide=facebook][/hide] [hide=deviantart][/hide] [hide=tinypic][/hide]

Would be good if you could post links to the guides and the authors corners in the first post Ratchet. Gonna get my act together and write up a story writing guide.

Tif, Muse, Diet Mountain Dew, TEH GIMP, LEGOs, LEGOLAND, Star Wars, glow in the dark stuff, Hikaru no Go, Yu-Gi-Oh! Millenium World, MythBusters, ice hockey, (usually) deviantART, (usually) facebook, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Fritos, Cadbury Eggs, Thin Mints, Japanese soda candies, Tootsie Rolls, Milk Duds, 3 Musketeers bars, Milky Ways, Mint Chocolate Chip ice cream, my DSi, my Wii, Animal Crossing, Legend of Zelda, old school gaming, video game music, the baritone saxophone, the alto saxophone, 3.5E Dungeons and Dragons, metal minis, paper models, Care Bears, drawing, manga, reading, sleeping, LEGO video games, Harry Potter (teh books), LOTR, Queen, Journey, classic rock/metal/hard rock, Nestle Drumsticks, Fudgesicles, Guitar Hero 3, Nintendo emulators, IKEA, digital art, the Falador and Varrock libraries, the Gallery, mah friends & family, Mario, Kirby, Link, renissance festivals, Girl Scouting, duct tape, banana cream pie, chicken tinfoil dinners, (we could be here all day) and I'll finish up with this emote: :roll: I use it rather a lot.

That's very true. Except I generally don't get that far, so I figure I might as well just draw something I think is cool than spend all the time doing that and never finish it. Also I drew the cloak rather large on purpose... The sleeves might be a little big though. [hide=WIP the Third, started shading][/hide]

Obama's president and we're at least 3 billion in the hole. (3 trillion I think). He hasn't done anything about North Korea and is bowing to foreign leaders. He made a statement that the Middle East's culture is just 'different from our point of view' and needs to be respected (this was during that law that husbands could force their wives to have sex at least once a week)... What I'm trying to say is she couldn't be worse than Obama is.

Sorry about that. Here's the actual sigs, click to download the xcfs. Also, the tut I made for my current sig [hide='Guy' Sig Tutorial][/hide] XCF:

Oh yes. : No seriously, I think there should be a hockey game today. Hockey is definitely the all-American (or rather North American) sport.

Fireworks are dumb, they keep me up... Yesterday was NOT the 4th and we have idiots setting them off, while they're ILLEGAL if you don't have a permit, and I'm sure they don't have a permit.. :x (I live in Michigan. Anything that goes higher than 5' or makes excessive noise is illegal unless you're a public entity. But people go to Indiana and buy cheap fireworks then take them home, light them, and don't get caught.) I hope I have hamburgers for dinner.

It was a stupid thing for her to step down as governor, but I hope she'll make it in 2012, I've got no problem with her being president. Romney would be my next choice... If the Republicans can even get it together for the next election. (WHICH I CAN ACTUALLY VOTE IN! YAY!) Why is everyone so against her? Imo, the only woman who would be better as president is Condelizza Rice, but she wants to be NFL commissioner (I don't blame her) Seriously I need a dorky tshirt to support her...

[hide=Lucian Sparrowhawk][/hide] I've spent about an hour so far on this (31 layers!), it's nowhere near done but I think I've done at least a little better than last time. Update: 1h 45mins, 46 layers [hide=WIP2][/hide]