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The more members a forum has, the more likely it is that someone is going to have your username. But if you are ‘always’ a certain username but that name is taken on the forum, don’t worry. You can think of another one.

However, there are a few aspects to usernames that are sure to get you ridicule and/or make you sick of them after a certain amount of time. The last thing you want is to choose a name that you’re going to want to change soon after.

Here are a few tips for picking out a username that will last you for a long time and won’t open you up for insults:

*Don’t use your real name. As tempting as (more…)

You have the computer, you have the internet, and now you want to start talking to people. Right? You have heard all about how the internet connects people from across the world, so why not get connecting?

Internet forums are a great way to talk to people, make friends, learn new things and have your say as well. And the beauty of forums is you can find several different forums for any subject – everything from creative writing to travel to music and just having a casual chat. Even more niche subjects like House (the television show) have spaces on the internet.

Where do you get started?

The first step is the easiest (more…)

Occasionally Mr. JM and I will wander down to the local pub and have a couple of drinks. We go there mainly to say hello to our friend Cyril, who is at the pub every day but Sunday and days he has family commitments. Cyril is always good for a laugh and good conversation, but there is one thing he resists above all else…

Technology.

Though Mr. JM and I have been telling him all about how technology can benefit him, even just by having a mobile phone, he refuses to mess with ‘that nonsense’. I even brought in my laptop to the pub last Friday and, while impressed, he refused Mr. JM’s offer to get him a laptop. For free.

I’m not sure if you know anyone technology-resistant who would go so far as to refuse a free laptop, but I’m sure you know at least one person who (more…)

If you are anything like me, one of the big uses of your home computer is storing all your music. I currently have 892 songs in iTunes and that is likely to only grow.

Ever since I started working with computers, I have resisted Windows Media Player. I’m not quite sure why – there are plenty of good things about it – but WMP always seemed too much trouble to deal with when I wanted to organize and listen to my music. I tried plenty of players, but they mostly didn’t last long.

That is, until I (more…)

As you may know, I also write for the site Finally Getting Fit (among others) here on the 451Press network. On Finally Getting Fit, I talk about my weight loss journey and trying to make a healthier life for myself.

I have been overweight most of my life, but that’s not the case for everyone…

With the increase of convenience technology, humans have fewer and fewer reasons to be as active as they once were. To make up for that, some of us join gyms, make sure to get out and about on weekends, buy in home gyms…but not everyone does. And the more you get used to sitting in front of your computer (for whatever reason) the easier it is to pack on the pounds.

So what can you do about it? How do you lose the pounds without losing too much of your computer time?

*Get two tennis balls and (more…)

I guess the most obvious question about being a part of the internet is ‘Why?’ Some people may always be observers but not participants, using their access to read, view and download but never actually putting things out there for others to read, view and download.

Others spend their time playing online games – sometimes for money, which involves participation but rarely contributing to the morass of data that is the web. Yet if everybody felt this way, there would be no internet.

The web can be a safety valve, not just (more…)

In the previous post I used the example of the Hockey Stick graph used successfully by the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Control) to ramp up awareness of the warming trend caused (they say) by human industry and consumption.

Keep in mind, the above graph is what, until the IPCC got on the case, was an agreed record of global temperature trends. Agreed across Science, backed by historical records as well as things like ice core data.

So what happened? If you enter a search in your favourite search engine of ‘hockey stick graph’ you will find the main author was Dr Michael Mann. He was an IPCC lead reviewer who somehow got to highlight his own work as being most indicative of the AGW. (Anthropogenic Global Warming – the warming caused (more…)

For those who may have been exploring their Consciousness in a cave in the Andes, or perhaps have 5 children under five years old to look after, and thus may not know, for some time now there has been a controversy raging over whether or not Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) is occurring.

This graph is the major source of the problem

Keep in mind, in this argument, nobody is suggesting we haven’t had recent warm weather, nor even that the Earth isn’t getting warmer. Indeed, standard Science has said all along that, since an event called The Little Ice Age about four hundred years ago, the Earth has been on a steady warming trend. (more…)

Some time back there was a flurry of activity about a movie called The Secret. It claims to contain information used by sages and successful people down through the ages and to be informative of a way of thought that those ‘in control’ don’t want us to know. It is available now to download from such sites as www.torrentz.com as a movie, an audio book and even as a hemisync track.

The hemisync track uses binaural beats to get your brain into alpha mode while the message of The Secret is talked about. The idea is to have it almost like hypnosis so the message gets in.

Powaqqatsi and Koyaanisqatsi are movies by Godrey Reggio which tend to defy categorization. They stand, I guess, as works of Art rather than Hollywood style movies. Koyaanisqatsi is a movie with (more…)

There are a variety of ways in which computers improve our multimedia experience. Those with the cash to spare can buy a Multimedia PC, using the functions built in to connect to a home entertainment system that rivals those which, until recently, (relatively) were only available in cinemas.

Surround sound, large screens, High Definition quality – all these contribute to an experience that leaves a simple TV night in the dirt. A few years back you could spend $5,000 on a fairly basic system and you’d be lucky if you knew anyone with a good system. Now you can upgrade your screen and use your computer to boost performance for an engrossing evening deep in the multimedia experience.

But you can also do it fairly simply with your computer. Systems these days come with more than enough memory, video performance, DVD players and hard disk space to let you spend some quality multimedia time in front of your machine.

It can also, properly configured, provide an enveloping experience with computer games.

Once good speakers were a necessary part of the quality time, but now there are cheap headphones that can easily match the performance of expensive speakers. And it means you can enjoy yourself in a room with people watching TV or doing other things.

Just try not to be vocal about things happening on the screen – it gets extraordinarily annoying to others to have odd unexplained noises coming from the corner of the room. Keeping the noise down can be thought of as divorce avoidance.

So, you’ve upgraded the RAM (memory) in your computer and now it runs better than before, but when you try to edit your digital video or convert your digicam footage into a DVD, it takes hours to run. Or maybe you go out and buy the latest game and then find it shows jerky video segments or takes excess time to update screens. What’s going on?

Well a lot of video performance issues come down to how capable your video card is. Most recent computers have a video chip on the motherboard to provide video capability. The problems with this may only surface (more…)

OK, so you’re wanting to improve your computer performance and you figure you’ll start with memory. You’ve looked inside the box to see if you have free slots or you’ve decided to replace what you have.

How to tell what kind you have?

There’s a nice little tool called Hardware Info which will query your computer and present you with a nice list of everything in it. Download it, install it and when you want to upgrade things in your machine it will tell you all you need to know.

Note the memory type in your computer (write it down) and you’re ready to (more…)

So… you’ve looked around, found your needs, discovered which ones suit your computer best, found a supplier with a good rep and a decent price and you’re wondering who you can pay to do the upgrade.

Relax, it’s not that hard. If you try not to worry about the complexities of what a computer actually does, there are only a few parts to see in the box and they are easy to identify.

But first, read and meditate on the following…

Rule number one – (more…)

So if you have a reason to upgrade, and the money to do it, you should spend a little bit of time to work out just what needs upgrading. In the examples from Upgrading a Computer, Part 1, there’s not a lot of point in buying a new computer if all you want is more space. Most computers have extra hard disk connectors so you can simply add in a new hard disk.

For better game play, you can add more memory to your computer or purchase a new video card and see a remarkable difference in how your machine responds. Most games don’t actually (more…)

The first question is, I guess, should you upgrade. If you look earlier in these posts, you will see ways to improve the performance of your computer which don’t cost anything except some time. (see Old Age or Clogged Arteries?)

So, should you upgrade? Well if you have a burning desire to spend money you could go out and buy a high specification computer and then cripple it with Windows Vista. Look to spending well over a thousand dollars to get something that will probably (more…)