Hannibal

That's just stupid (but I'm sure we all realized that).

Okay. For the love of god, don't throw that system away... Thinks you could look into improving: RAM (1GB (or more if you feel like spending money)), cpu (if you have too much money, because this one should run fine. If you do have a lot of money to spend, you could try getting 3.2 or 3.4Ghz), graphics card (if you want to play games, this and the ram is most likely what you want to be spending stuff on). That pc is definitely not ready to be thrown in a bin yet. Also, we can't see what kind of graphics card you use. Try getting the AIDA32 (use google) or the thingy mentioned in the FAQ (I forget its name). Judging from the amount of physical memory you're using, posting a hijackthis log may also be an idea. :)

http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/ You could also try Opera (http://www.opera.com) Both are internet browsers (like internet explorer). Both offer more control over the way you browse, block popups, control cookies, are not as susceptible to malicious programs, etc. Which one you prefer depends on taste. :-)

Actually, if may also be a trojan. To the poster: how long since you updated Norton and Spybot? (No, don't go 'they update themselves'. They don't (well, not always, anyway)) I'd advise you to update both, and then scan your computer again.

That's a bug in your virus scanner (I think it's McAfee who did that?). You should update your virus definitions. That's just the site for Google Ads. It's nothing bad.

Sucks to see you leave, Rhys. As you said, we should be in touch through other channels. Have fun with post-TIF life ;).

Wyrm is right, if you just installed Firefox and/or Jasc as an update, over the original, you had better leave the entries alone. You can fix them by going into the registry (if they annoy you), but they are definitely not taking up 3 times the space of one install (Windows' calculations on that are pretty crappy anyway). I suggest you leave them alone.

You forgot one important point, which is a standard issue with Cryptography and/or data security. Security must be good enough to force whomever tries to crack it to go to so much trouble that it is worth the information you're trying to protect. For example, if I have a company secret that would give my concurrent a business advantage of one million dollars, I should make sure that the costs for my concurrent to find and use the data are more than one million dollars. I should not go paranoid and spend a million dollars on its security myself, that would be absolute nonsense. So, if I have a forum password (as a normal user), then a password of say, 6 characters would be more than enough. Any non-admin user would have to go to way too much trouble to hack it anyway. On the other hand, when someone cracks an administrator password, the *entire forum* is screwed. Which means administrator passwords should be more secure (ie, longer, and more difficult to guess). The same goes for the fact that when you have a certificate you use to sign your emails, someone who knows the password for your account on the CA (Certificate Authority, ie Thawte for example), then you're very much screwed. So you should pick a password with numbers, lower+uppercase letters, symbols if possible, and it should be at least 12 characters long.

/me slaps Sharper 10.0.0.* range (maybe more of the 10.* range, not sure) is reserved for networking. That entry is his router. Leave it alone, or Windows will panic and kill itself ;)

I'm not at all for this choice of motherboard + RAM. If you want a 'future-proof' pc, as you called it, you would want either 1GB of RAM immediately, or 512MB on a motherboard with 4 RAM slots, so you can expand to 1GB later. Also, the motherboard (to me) is a no-name one, and the reviews I found were not very good. It also only has 2 PCI slots, and according to one of the reviews one of those gets blocked if you put in a decent PCI-E card (like you're planning to). This just means that you have absolutely ZERO expandability. Also, this is a microATX board, which means it's quite small (which explains the lack of slots for just about everything except USB and SATA). It's also mentioned that video card cooling will be a problem because of the way the board is laid out. This means you may run into trouble running that (rather) high-end video card on it. If I were you, I'd try getting a motherboard from ASUS, MSI or Gigabyte, with 4 slots of RAM, and get 1GB of RAM if you can afford it, and if you can't stick with 512MB dual channel, and get another 512 in Dual Channel later. :)

Well, if you have a half-decent programming language you can integrate previously written libraries, like DirectX or GDI or OpenGL... or even one of the GNU libraries for stuff like that. Anyhow, writing your own game all by yourself is way more fun than using a game maker program, since games created in the latter will, as said, have the originality of a rubber duck.

*shrug* Not really what you wanted, but the realism is there I guess ;). (Note that this wasn't done in Terragen anyway, but oh well...) edit: I don't know if you like this one. I had it lying around, if there's anything you want changed, let me know :). If it's crap, might as well tell me that too :P

Cabbage! Google will include your site if you put it up yourself or if it's linked to by other sites (as is prolly the case with, say, most devart pages). And images included in your site can still be copyrighted whatever the case, which makes it a crime to use them without asking the author first.

I love it when I get to explain my view on humanity's weakness: we can hardly talk to eachother if we're not feeling we are right and others should convert to our point of view. That's just [cabbage]! Discussion is to learn from eachother, not to point a gun / start flaming: "you better agree with me or else...". This world would be damn boring if everyone thought the same about every issue. Go figure and stop flaming please - whether you agree with me or not. On topic: I'm with Muse, but I have to disagree with this (shortened a bit for clarity): ... however I'm always surprised when logic such as above in bold is used to prove a point; A ban on clinical abortion (which as I stated am not 100% against) will not stop illegal abortions. Right. However, cocaine usage is illegal, as well as drunk driving. Since people still do it anyway, should we just legalize it once again? DBP is right, and your logic doesn't make sense, that's what I think at least. Drunk driving endangers other people - therefore we have rules for it, whether people still try it is beside the point. Cocaine use is illegal. Now this is an important point: people can screw themselves up pretty badly if using cocaine. But it's (to a very slim extent) legal in Holland (I think you're allowed to have a maximum of 5 grams on you or something like that, any more and you need to have a damn good explanation what you're planning on doing with that). Now why is it legal? Exactly because of what DBP said: if it's legal, it's a lot easier to keep a close look at all the users, and treat them when they need it. (please tell me if you don't like me using that acronym, Death_By_Pod, it's just shorter ;)). Cocaine use is not as likely to harm others as drunk driving, if done in an appropriate environment. You're not allowed to use cocaine in the middle of the street, for example, there are special coffeeshops where you are allowed to use it (they usually have extra security / medical treatment rules) and you can do it in your own home (which poses more risk for yourself, but less for others - your choice). Whereas drunk driving endangers all other people / animals / things currently somewhere on the road (or, in some circumstances, some place close to the road ;)). Abortion is not very likely to harm others - except the baby. Now I have to agree that a baby can't feel anything for quite a period of time (and if I can remember correctly, it will only feel something after all the possibilities of abortion have run out (meaning it's not possible without risking the mothers life). I think people have the right to decide for themselves whether they 'need' an abortion, but personally (if I were to be a pregnant woman) I'd only do so when: - Conception was part of rape or incest. Having a child from your rapist / own father is a huge burden - whether you have it adopted or not. - Conception took place even when using contraceptives, like condoms or whatever. Because then it's not your fault. I've heard stories of people who used a condom, the condom didn't work, she took a morning after pill, that didn't work, and then she wasn't allowed an abortion. She should have, as she didn't want that child at all, and it'd be wrong to force the child on her whatever the case. - Continuing pregnancy puts the mother's life at stake. I think others covered this topic very well, so I won't do it all over again ;). Johnnysmum, I think you pretty much disagree with yourself here :?. If ejaculation without conception is OK, and a woman having her period without getting pregnant is OK too (I think we all agree on this one, don't we ;)), then why is it wrong to have the child aborted when it's a small ball of 4 to 8 cells (I think it's about that when you use a morning after pill). You don't go telling me those 4 or 8 cells have feeling. Ergo, it's not a living being. If you feel that anything which is DNA and can still grow out to a living being should be treated with the respect you have for full-grown humans, then you should consider the seamon and eggs as such, as both still have the possibility to grow into a human. Why would that be any different to the little cells which form after conception takes place? As to the "the baby has feelings and responds to the outer world" part of your argument (forgive me for not quoting, I'm in a hurry now :(), I agree that it's wrong to abort when the baby has grown to that level (not that I think I have the right to force others to agree with me) - but it's not responding or really 'feeling' when it's less than 20 weeks old. So I'm afraid I can't really see your point, care to elaborate? :)

I recently saw a poster with Murphy quotes (find more on http://www.murphys-laws.com/ ). So off we go: :lol: