Golden Tiger

Glad to see you back again! My account has an inaccessible cPanel... just thought I would let you know.

I think Pluto should be a planet based on the fact that somebody found it around 50 years ago using technology of that era. Sure, we can find Pluto like objects now in a similar area of the solar system but our technology has advanced as well. So, based on historical reasons, it should be an "honorary planet". (not too scientific an explanation, I know) Realistically, they should teach all "planet like objects" to students and alike. In general, a basic knowledge of the Solar System has consisted of knowing the planets, knowing of the asteroid belt, and knowing of various moons existing. That basis of knowledge should be expanded by adding "knowledge of various dwarf planets" (or whatever they are called right now). You should be required to name one (or two?) dwarf planets of which Pluto is one of them. That way, the known objects in the solar system (public knowledge) could expand to include some of these new objects. However, if the dwarf planets aren't really covered, then the solar system turns into 8 planets, some asteroids, and some moons around a star... and that's it. I suppose it doesn't really matter though. Pluto isn't exactly going anywhere and isn't exactly caring about what jibberish is being discussed on the third planet. Changing the definition of Pluto certainly made some rather upset scientist become a more relaxed individual... while the rest of us just accepted this new fact. Oh well...

I have a U3 drive and other than Skype I haven't found too many U3 only programs that interest me. Also, I was under the impression that the U3 software was designed NOT to install on normal drives for licensing reasons and for some silly technical reason too. You can remove U3 from a U3 drive but reinstalling is rather difficult too. There are other programs available that install on any jump drive that does U3 like stuff (such as running applications off the jump drive that were not installed on the computer). Portable Apps is one that comes to mind although the program selection is somewhat limited. Linky is below. http://portableapps.com/ The programs that install through U3 or Portable Apps have to be designed to run without installation, without writing files to the jump drive often, and to not leave any clutter on the machine you run it on. Due to those limitations, there isn't a huge amount of software available. U3 tends to support pay software and more commercial software while freeware solutions such as Portable Apps tend to support open source programs. I say that you should look into the free solutions first to see if they offer what you want. Portable Apps' software listing is on their page and U3's software listing is at the link below. http://software.u3.com/softwarecentral.aspx?skip=1 If you need U3, I recommend that you get the cheapest U3 drive that you can. You can always carry around the non-U3 drive and transfer files to it if necessary. On the whole, jump drives are cheap enough so that you can purchase another one without too much difficulty. Still, I prefer the free solution as possible and you might too. I have Portable Apps installed on my U3 drive so I kinda have the best of both worlds. Still, I don't use either launcher all that much. If I need to use them, they are there... I suppose.

I have a variety of computers with some being ancient and others just being gracefully old. Most of them serve purposes though... My main machine --------------------- AMD Athlon 1800+ overclocked to be a 2400+ Radeon 9600 video card Asus A7N8X ver 1.0 motherboard 1 Gb Ram -- 6 years old or so -- My main machine has held up well running Windows XP. Granted, it can only play newer games at the lowest settings, but it works for most everything else just fine. However, the motherboard in particular is not supported in Vista. Therefore, I will upgrade this system soon. Laptop -------- Compaq Presario v5303nr AMD Turion 64 ML-28 1.6GHz processor AMD Radeon m200 integrated video Windows XP, but Vista capable -- 2 years old -- Other than the memory, this system should run better than my desktop. However, it simply serves as a valuable laptop for when I am not at home. I have the Vista install disks as provided by HP however I have yet to install them. The memory is simply too lousy for Vista and I haven't gotten around to upgrading it yet. Also, the integrated graphics borrows some memory for itself which would make the Vista experience even more lousy. Laptop -- Testing -------------------- Compaq Armada m700 Pentium III 700 Mhz processor ATI graphics (Rage?) with 4 Mb (!!) memory 512 Mb ram Ubuntu Linux -- had for 3 years, is 8 years old -- This is a rather thin and light laptop which is simply out of date by today's standards. No trackpad, just one of those weird joystick track points. However, it works well with Linux and with the Netgear wireless card I have. As stated, it is a testing laptop for Linux so that my digital life doesn't come to an end if something wonky happens with that OS. However, this laptop does have a dead battery... the nice thing is that it has the same power adapter as the laptop above. Desktop -- testing ----------------------- AMD K6-3 400 Mhz Voodoo 3 video card 384 Mb memory -- a long time??? -- This desktop would be a decent server except for the fact that it would take electricity if it was on. Also, I'm not sure if my ISP would be too happy with me having a server. Thus, this computer is sitting at the moment. It has Ubuntu Server edition on it though... I have some other digital devices that might count as computers... those being a Nokia n800 and a Dell Axim x30 High. However, since they are not computers per say, I will exclude them from this listing. I found that having a purpose for each device is vital. If the devices do not serve a discrete role then they are likely to be ignored. Otherwise, as you can guess, I am behind on the upgrade curve. I will eventually choose a desktop machine that will serve me for years to come... once I figure out what to purchase.

The one thing about Orange Box I kinda don't like is that you have to buy the whole bundle. Yes, I understand that is a "tremendous savings" but it also is a high price to pay for only a subset of the games. For instance, Portal looks extremely interesting and Team Fortress 2 is a close second. If I purchase both of those separately then I am already at the cost of the Orange Box! Ah well... for now this purchase is pushed aside. The portal idea is interesting. I played the freeware prior version of Portal that Wikipedia told me about so I have an idea what to expect when I eventually do play Portal. The puzzle and especially the physics aspects of that game type is interesting and one I would like to look into. However, I think Portal would would be a little more time oriented than the other game I have played... after all I saw a video where a portal had to be fired before spikes crushed you to death which certainly leads to the need for quick thinking. Then again, any games not bought today will hopefully be cheaper tomorrow. I will just try to keep this package in mind for the future.

I have recently signed up for an account that has been activated. The activation happened about two days ago. I made a very simply index.html to just say that my site is still under construction since I am VERY rusty at making websites. However, the index file isn't showing any ads and I'm not sure why. I am under the ads account option. I didn't want to get in any trouble for the missing ads so I thought I would bring attention to that here. If it is a known problem then I apologize for not seeing it on the forums. (If there is a thread on this problem, can you please PM me the link...) If it isn't a posted issue then how do I proceed from here? Do I PM a certain person or post my Heliohost URL... or what?