At 11/21/09 03:06 PM, ReNaeNae wrote: I use digsby... it lets you have aim, msn, yahoo, facebook, etc... all in one. Plus it has tabs AND spell check, unlike trillian. :D

I'm not too keen on installing the ask toolbar. I guess I'll stick with the ads in AIM. :-\

At 11/21/09 03:03 PM, EJR wrote: AIM 7 looks pretty good, but it took a little getting used to at first.

Thanks, I've installed that. It's taking a little getting used to. I also liked the fact that DeadAIM would let you clone AIM screen names - so I could have both my private and public names open at the same time. But I guess that's not a big deal, I'll give this a whirl.

Any idea how to turn off that ad at the bottom of the buddy list? That was another benefit of DeadAIM, none of that crap was there.

At 11/21/09 02:35 PM, EJR wrote: Wait, what's wrong with the real version of AIM?

Why don't you just get that?

I haven't used it in years - the last time I did, it did not support tabbed messages (which is a must) and bombarded me constantly with news ticker messages etc. If it has ceased to do that, then maybe I'll give it a go. That's why I'm asking - I essentially want something that will support tabs and not bother me with crap I don't need to read. If I want to read the news etc, I will go to a news website.

At 11/21/09 02:13 PM, jewdudewtf wrote: I've always liked Miranda. Its simple and it works on Windows 7.

Does it support tabbed messaging? That's one of the things that drew me to DeadAIM years back, as AIM used to just open a new window up for every conversation. Given that I quite often have up to 30 conversations on the go at any one time, that wasn't particularly useful to me.

Long story short, I'm in the process of migrating laptops. I've always used DeadAIM before as an AIM client, but I've bought it at least four times and I'm not even sure whether the latest version of that (haven't checked) is compatible with the latest version of AIM.

So, any recommendations for what I should use? I'm running Windows 7 (64 bit) on this machine.

I'm not interested in the "AIM sucks, get MSN" argument, btw - all of those who I care to talk to use AIM, so that kind of advice won't help.

Thanks guys.

At 11/20/09 09:41 PM, Luis wrote: Are the rails made of styrofoam. i dont get how a train system could get so broken everyday of its existence.

I wondered the same thing. I went out for beers with a friend down there and had a little rant about it. He explained that, as silly as it might seem, the weekend is the quietest period of the week for the tubes, so that's why they do all the maintenance then. The only gripe he had was that they never seemed to be able to finish the maintenance and that there were rarely any noticeable differences.

However, large parts of the undeground in London has been in existence for well over a hundred years old, so I guess the works are kind of necessary.

At 11/20/09 07:08 PM, Wonchop wrote: Anyone know what's a good area to try and book a hotel in, relevant to where we might be going, particularly since the majority of hotels have a post 2pm check in time?

I booked into a Citadines hotel in South Kensington for the last meet, thinking it was an ideal place to be, given that its stations have access to three tube lines (and < 10 minutes from the london eye on the tube).

Unfortunately, two of the three were closed for the weekend, which foiled my plans of convenience, so wherever you book, make sure you check for planned tube downtime first.

It looks like China's getting on in the world of technology: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/83 62825.stm

This comes at a time (I know I posted this link earlier in another thread, but whatever) when an internet censorship debate was muscled down over a "controversial" poster, which depicted the great wall of china as being symbolic of their (China's) stance over the global internet (and restricting access to it), or something like that. Linky pinky:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/83 61849.stm

It'd be nice to see China collaborate with the rest of the world on developing the internet, rather than closing themselves off as they do in certain circumstances, since it's clear that the country has an interest in technological development (which will only gain momentum as the country continues to develop).

I would also like to give you a present, Wade, as you did with Bedn in this cartoon:

JOSH BEDN EPOLAGISES!!1!, by BaconBurgerClock Type: Movie Rating: Ages 17+

At 11/16/09 09:29 PM, Ragnarokia wrote: He is at home wooing in misery as we celebrate it at GMT

Your profile states that you're in Nantwich. I can think of no greater misery than that.

Anyway, I know he doesn't particularly care for birthdays (and nor do I for that matter). But have a good one, all the same, Wade.

I know that this isn't strictly adhering to what you intend to write about, but I was reading it earlier on today and thought you might like to have a look through it, since a few of the representatives of the IGF make pretty decent points:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/83 61849.stm

Back in the day, this was considered pretty controversial:

goldilocks, by Emkaah Type: Movie Rating: Ages 17+

At 11/11/09 05:45 AM, deckheadtottie wrote: most of the "fun" pubs I've been to in London tend to have a bouncer on the door who checks ID before entry.

I've never needed it (although I do tend to carry ID around with me.) Then again, I do turn 32 next month. But yeah... you don't even have a passport, citricsquid? You can pick one of those up in London, but rather than the £49 or whatever, you'll pay double that.

At 11/11/09 11:27 AM, Luis wrote: I'd strongly advise, bringing an ID with you. even if its your college ID or whatever you people use... some people seem to get in fine with those. Particularly if you dont look 12.

One of my favourite quotes from the last meet was in Namco. Someone approached you (sorry, forget who) and said "TimFrommeyer has been refused service at the bar. He showed them his ID and they wouldn't accept it. Apparently, it was good enough to get him in the country, but not to get a drink." Your response was, "What? Fuck that, I'll go get him one."

I also updated that hub page thing.

Does that include pictures from the last whatever meet?

I have one going spare. First person to PM me about it gets it, but it MUST be for you - not to pass on to someone else.

This might do what you need it to: http://www.mozilla.org/projects/calendar /sunbird/

At 11/9/09 08:08 PM, ToddM wrote: Snooker is big in the UK with tournments and such. Can any UK users tell me is it on TV like Pool is on ESPN?

All of the major championships are shown on TV, but those only happen once every few months. I suppose there's some sports channel that airs smaller tournaments and maybe the same with pool matches, but I haven't seen any.

It surprises me how many people have been saying, "What's snooker", when you all have google at your disposal. According to Tom, it is a "ridiculous game".

I actually like watching it, or at least having it on in the background, I find it relaxing. I don't like playing it though, I'm too small to stretch over the table.

At 11/9/09 01:19 PM, nazmdeh wrote: Over here in England its only another 5 and a bit hours before the official release! I personally will be off to Game to get my copy.

Mine's already shipped. Here's a copy of an e-mail I got from a friend who's in the industry earlier, though. This only applies to the UK, of course. Hope it helps you save some cash.

---------------------------------

For anyone after the next Call of Duty (that goes on sale midnight tonight) and aren't aware of the current supermarket games pricing war, the title can be picked up from Sainsbury's for a mere £26 - saving £29!!!!

http://www.mcvuk.com/news/36405/Modern-W arfare-2-price-roundup

At 11/9/09 12:38 PM, Luis wrote: most of this thread is people asking about the photos of the last whatever meet.

Where are the photos of the last whatever meet?

How many times... READ the first post in the thread there. This suggestion has been made before and it's listed under the rejections under "remote image linking".

Reverend touched on why this is a bad idea, I'm not going to waste time writing up a full explanation again, since I've already done so a few times in the past.

I'm not mad at anyone, btw, but the information is in the forums if you look for it.

I don't understand the question. This is not helped by the fact that you don't provide:

a) the URL of your site
b) what kind of hosting you have
c) this doesn't belong in the general forum - it should be posted in the programming forum

Typically, all you need to do is to provide some sort of index file (whether that be index.html, index.htm,, index.php, etc) and that's it. But none of us know what sort of hosting you have, so it's difficult to say anything else about it until we do. Again, put this in the programming forum.

At 11/7/09 04:45 PM, Timmy wrote: What is a bossier anyway?

Someone who is more bossy than normal / another bossy person.

And whenever I travel outside of my area, people have difficulty understanding me.

I understood every word you said when I met you and I'm not even from the same country. I just chose to ignore most of what you said. I gest.....

The only times I've ever gotten annoyed at pronunciation and language in general is when someone's told me I'm pronouncing something wrong, or one of my friends family is supposedly pronouncing or saying something wrong. I have two examples:

1. I was in America with family when I was younger and we went to a store to find my Mother a new dress. She picked one out and asked the store attendant if she could try the "dress with the dots" on. The woman looked at her quizically and said, "The what?" This conversation continued for a couple of times, before the woman attendant clicked and said, "Oh, the polka dot dress? You should learn to speak English." a) My mum IS English and b) she was at the time an English teacher (she's since retired.)

2. Similarly, I was on XBL one night and some kid told me I should speak English. Again, I AM English. I don't really speak with any regional dialect, either.

I have no problem whatsoever with different pronunciations of the same words - language and dialects evolve and it would be a very boring world if everyone spoke the same language and with the same accent etc. I don't agree with people who try and shove their own idea of what pronunciation should be applied to each word we speak, though.

I've explained this countless times in the past, but here goes again.

Back when the grounds gold system was new, the site worked differently to how it does now. There were either 9 or 11 (I always get mixed up) sections that you could visit each day:

1. The front page.
2. The flash portal (non-automated).
3. Club a seal.
4. Assassin.
5. Cat dynamics.
6. Beep me Jesus.

etc

After every section you'd visited you could deposit your experience points - like you could just go to one section and deposit one experience point, but that would be you done for the day. You could visit all of the sections and THEN deposit your points.

There also used to be a referral system that allowed you to have an additional five points for each person you referred.

Now, though, you just get 10 points a day if you deposit after voting on five flashes. You get bonus points for certain things when you first sign up, but that's about it.

At 11/6/09 07:26 PM, BabiesAteMyDingo wrote: You might like to try the suggestions thread. But this has been commented on so many times before. You just have to live with it I'm afraid.

I can't find link at the moment I'll post it as soon as I have.

Please don't. If the suggestion, as you've rightly said, has been posted before, then there's no point in cluttering the thread further with repeated suggestions.

I bought a new laptop in August. It came with vista, but as with most computers after January I think, you get the option for a free upgrade to windows 7. I'm still waiting for my copy to arrive.

The new laptop I have is the exact same model that they demonstrated at a MS unveiling of windows 7. I'm not sure whether they had the solid state drive in that machine that I've put into mine, but the demo model did a full boot from cold in 11 seconds. So I'm expecting magic.

At 11/3/09 05:53 PM, LynchedJohNNY wrote: It's even worse that they fully knew they were on camera and would be punished.

Well, that's the point - they probably didn't know that they were on camera, since the footage was taken from closed circuit sets attached up high on different buildings.

At 11/3/09 05:05 PM, LynchedJohNNY wrote: As a American I know nothing of why some drunks would attack Mr. Patel, so can anyone enlighten me?

It's ok, I don't think the majority of people in the UK would know of him or know why these guys attacked him, either, given that he's a regional reporter and there are quite a lot of regional news shows that are shown in the area that they're covering stories in.

I'm just speculating here, but a lot of these regional reports are pre-recorded on the street and just require maybe two or three people - the reporter, video and audio guys. I would imagine that the people in this footage kept pestering him when he was filming a story and that gave them an "incentive" to continue whatever they were doing. Unfortunately, some people just see any sort of reaction as being a ticket to kick the crap out of someone.

I know that a lot of people abroad frown upon CCTV circuits running throughout cities in the UK, but it's pretty difficult to argue against this making an easy case for the jury, as it's all on film - and negates the reason to have the case drawn out and the people causing the problems risking getting away without prosecution.

At 11/3/09 12:26 PM, ryanson209 wrote:

At 11/3/09 12:22 PM, Fim wrote: everything he said.

He was holding the camera. Duh!

I mean, who else would film it and slap it on Youtube?

That footage was taken from a CCTV camera. The police use them to monitor the streets, and you can tell from the footage that it's mounted at a high position and has "Cam 43", followed by time/date at the bottom left. That's why the police van turned up so quickly, since it's clear that neither the reporter or his cameraman made an emergency call, they were following it all on camera.

At 11/1/09 06:37 AM, SteveGuzzi wrote: I wonder if they feel the same way about fast-forwarding past commercials on their DVR / TiVo.

I think that's an invalid comparison. When you Tivo something, you're recording and then watching back later. The ads still go out in the shows that people are watching live. Ad blocking on websites is different - you're blocking them as they're shown live.

With respect to the ad sharing stuff - cpmstar (the handler) gets 25% of the ad profit, newgrounds gets 25% (because it costs money to maintain the servers that the ads are run from) and the artists get 50% (the lion's share.)

Store purchases really don't cover even 1% of the costs of the running of the site, so any attempts to justify that being a viable source of main income at the moment are invalid. If more people were buying things, sure, the balance might change, but I don't think that's going to happen any time soon. Just look at all the t-shirt based sites that are going out of business at the moment.

Those who have said that ads are an outdated business model, particularly when comparing against ads in print... again, invalid comparison. You buy a newspaper/magazine etc, so you've paid up in front, the ads there are just ancillary methods of bringing in income.

Ads are the only way of keeping large websites free to use, the store will bring in a few extra bucks, but nowhere near enough to sustain a site that does as much traffic as this. Adding subscription fees with added bonuses for subscribers would probably infuriate those users who aren't prepared to pay a subscription, so there'd be more bitching and moaning about that.

I don't necessarily think that ad blocking is "stealing", but I do think it's like biting the hand that's feeding you.

Happy Birthday! I'm no artist.