A Pagan man died.

He found himself standing at the Pearly Gates; with St Peter blocking his way.

I’m sorry,” Said St Peter, “but you can’t come in here: You’re a Pagan, and you don’t even believe this place exists.”

The Pagan was startled. “Where do I go then?” He asked.

I’m afraid you’ll have to go to hell.” St Peter replied.

The Pagan resigned himself to destiny as St Peter waved his hand and he vanished.

He found himself in a dark courtyard standing outside some black gates smeared with blood suspended on two fiery gateposts. The gates were covered with gruesome gargoyles, and were rather hot to the touch. The Pagan opened the gates and noticed a sign above reading “Hell. No Exit.” He gulped as he stepped inside.

A falling leaf brushed past his face as he looked around. The sun shone through the trees and a song thrush sang a merry tune from the woodland in front of him. He was standing on a well-paved path which led into the woods. Squirrels and fawns came up to meet him as he passed through the wooded scenery. Tree spirits smiled as a tiny sylph hovered above her dew-pond and a dragonfly buzzed past.

Awestruck by the beauty of the place, the Pagan saw a well-dressed gentleman standing at the other end of the wood, holding a black cane with a small skull on the top of it.

“Ah…Hello…” He called, hesitantly, not knowing quite what to expect. “I’m new here: I wonder if you could help me?”

The other man turned and smiled.

Ah a new entrant.” He said. Yes I’ve heard all about you. Do allow me to show you around. I’m Satan by the way. I was just inspecting the latest bluebells, which appear to be sadly lacking in fragrance at this moment.”

“Tell me,” He continued, “Do you think a shrubbery would look nice there? I usually have them planted with pink lobelia, but I have a feeling light blue would better match the light.”

They strode out from the woods, chatting pleasantly, and to the edge of a quiet summer meadow. “The Pagan meeting grounds are right over there near the stone circle just over that hill.” Continued Satan. “I told them you were coming and they’re simply dieing to meet you if you’ll excuse the pun…”

The Pagan had noticed a huge cloud assembling above; and was just about to remark on it when:

KABOOM! A streak of lightning exploded the air between the centre of the meadow and the sky. Smoke rose from the meadow as the ground fell away revealing a huge blazing pit. Sulphur fumes filled the air as a chasm opened in the cloud above the pit, out of which flew three black bat-winged demons carrying pitchforks. One of them shouted “Come on you slow bastards!”, following which out tumbled several naked people into the flames; screaming in agony from the heat.

The pit closed-over and the meadow floor re-grassed itself as if by magick. The Demons re-entered the chasm and it and the cloud melted silently away.

The Pagan stared transfixed in horror and amazement.

“W-what was that!” He exclaimed.

Satan looked directly at him with red eyes aglow, a smirk on his face; and said, tongue-in-cheek:

“Those were Christians, they wouldn’t have it any other way.”

*Please note. : This story is fiction, and was for the purpose of humour only. It does not reflect the beliefs of Pagans, and neither is it written to ’slate’ or to provoke anyone of any belief or denomination. Any offence caused by this joke is unintentional, and is unnecessarily taken.

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It’s a long time ago; but if I recall correctly there was no media player in Windows 95, (Correct me if I am wrong; it feels like I’ve lived several lifetimes since then.) and the first Windows Media Player was introduced with Windows 98; a player with very basic functionality which was a part of the operating system itself.

To cut a long story short; the good news, as far as this article is concerned is, it’s still there - Exactly as it originally was: Microsoft Media Player 5.1 in all its antiquity.

You don’t believe me? Open a command prompt in XP (Home or Professional.) and type “mplay32.exe”. You see; it is there, hiding away. It can play a certain selection of files, such as AVI, WMA,WMV,MID, and WAV.

Now think; what if you could use this to sample sound files without opening the full media player, such as WMP11? - For instance; if you could just select a .WAV or a .MID file, click on something, and Microsoft Media Player 5.1 appeared and sampled it instantly: Useful or what? No hanging around waiting for WMP11 to load its massive bulk just to play a tiny file.

This is especially useful for people with midi-libraries or who create sound files from prerecorded effects stored on sound files, or even just for sampling your music collection maybe.

And now for more good news: You can do just that - and here’s how:

To use Microsoft Media Player in this way, add it to the SendTo menu by following these steps:

Right-click on a blank area of your desktop, (Where there are no icons.) and highlight “New” in the drop-down menu that appears.

Another drop-down menu appears. Select “Shortcut” and click it. A wizard appears.

Type “C:\Windows\system32\Mplay32.exe /Play” (Without the inverted commas.) in the text box on the wizard and click Next.

Name the shortcut “Microsoft Media Player” (Without the inverted commas.) and click Finish.

You’ll see a clapper-board icon appear on the desktop: Remember where this is on the screen. Now we’re going to find the SendTo folder.

It’s located at:

%windir%:\Documents and Settings\username\SendTo

Where %windir% is your system root directory; usually C:, and username is your account username. e.g. “Jane” or “John” or “Supernerd”, or whatever.

If you don’t understand that, then find it using the search feature. (You’ll need to look in hidden files and folders if you do.)

Once you’ve found the folder SendTo; drag and drop the icon you just created into it and close it. (You might find it useful to create a shortcut to it on the desktop: You’ll understand why from a future post.)

Now when you encounter an AVI, WMA, WMV, MID, or WAV file and you just want to sample it, you can simply right-click on that file and select the SendTo>Microsoft Media Player command. It’ll start playing right away, as soon as the Microsoft Media Player appears.

Target neutralised.

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Psystar; the company in the US that offers Mac clones, has filed an antitrust lawsuit against Apple in a counterstrike, claiming that Steve Jobs’ enterprise employs a load of hype, dubious licensing schemes/technology for the purpose of dominating the Mac-scene.

The Psystar “Hackintosh”

If Psystar were to win this lawsuit then the face of personal computing as we know it could dramatically receive a fair amount of plastic-surgery: The monopolisation that Apple insist upon enforcing on its customers will end, and Jobsweh will no longer be able to exploit the Apple fanbois/girls with his money-grabbing greed and vastly-exaggerated profits which he currently makes. If Psystar do win then it could mean that Apple technologies become a kind of Open Source environment - Something that Jobsweh has gone out of his way to avoid so far.

Psystar’s angle, according to documents filed in U.S. District Court for San Francisco, is Apple “has engaged in certain anticompetitive behaviour and/or other actions that are in violation of the public policy underlying the federal copyright laws.”

Apple originally filed a lawsuit against the comparatively tiny Psystar in July 2008: Psystar clones Macs; that is to say it sells copies of Macs, complete with Leopard, for their real value plus an acceptable profit-margin - Rather than the massively-inflated rip-off prices incurred in buying from Jobsweh and company. Apple claimed that this violates their copyright of the Mac OS and want the court to order Psystar to stop.

Psystar counter this argument by stating that Macs are a cult-monopoly, and that Apple dominates that sector of the market by employing  questionable licences, and uses crafty advertising to create a cult following of their non-interchangeable technologies, maximising their profit-margins in so doing.

In essence; Psystar is accusing Apple of acting anti-competitively in its monopolisation of the Mac and related products. Among other such anticompetitive practices; Apple embeds code into the Mac OS that will brick third-party machines by disrupting the kernel.

Personally I hope Psystar win, and succeed in defeating the greedy Jobsweh who is cheating his customers and breaking the law in some regards.

There have been a number of multi-million-dollar cases of antitrust filed against Microsoft for anticompetitive behaviour of a lesser nature; nearly all of which have succeeded. On the basis of that I think it only fair that Apple are forced to abandon their current policies, pay Psystar’s legal costs, and that Psystar are awarded a small figure in damages.

“…And the Overlord [Jobsweh]…shall strike as a thief in the night…”

2 Machinations 16:45

Whatever happens; this high-profile case is playing for some high stakes: If Psystar were to win it could open the floodgates and make the Mac environment virtually open source; competing with Linux, and even affecting Microsoft too.

Go Psystar - Yay! This blog fully supports and encourages Psystar in its attempts to thwart the anticompetitive and illegal endeavours of the greedy unethical Jobsweh; god of all things Apple.

Other related posts from other blogs:-

http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2008/07/apple-demands-t.html

http://www.davidrisley.com/2008/04/15/openmac-psystar-reeks-of-a-publicity-stunt/

http://www.pcmech.com/article/psystar-doing-software-patches-flips-off-apple/

http://blogs.zdnet.com/hardware/?p=1685

http://www.pcmech.com/article/psystar-gets-the-bejeezus-sued-out-of-them-by/

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§ Complete PC scanning, including running processes, registry entries, files and folders

§ Detects and removes: adware, spyware, pop-Up generators, keyloggers, trojans, hijackers, and malware

§ One of the largest spyware definition databases in the industry

§ Automatic definition and feature updates

§ Fast, powerful, and easy to use

§ Comprehensive customer technical support

§ Protects against identity and credit card theft

See this product in action for yourself:

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A large amount of the following material was written some years ago by myself, and I’ve attempted to join a number of partially-rewritten paragraphs together in this post, mixed with some newly-written sentences to make a more-in-depth article on this subject. Whilst I have covered a lot, both from writings I made several years ago and from new additions, I am unable to do full justice to this huge matter without writing a rather large book on the subject.

Whilst there is a lot of standard doctrine within Paganism; there is also a very deeply personal side which is unique to all Pagans individually. At this point I’d better mention that Paganism has nothing whatsoever to do with “Devil Worship”: The “Devil” concept is a myth of Christian origin; through which they attempted to discredit and demonise Pagan belief by colouring and utilising the image of the Horned God; partner of the Mother Goddess, as the archetypical representation of all evil within their own religion. - However this Devil character, referred to in the Christian Bible as Satan, is a relatively recent character in mythology, and has no relevance to original Pagan beliefs and doctrine; nor for that matter modern-day neo-Paganism.

No; it’s not “Devil worship”: This “Devil” is a Christian myth rather than a Pagan one - How can anyone worship something that they believe doesn’t exist?

So what would one do in order to become a Pagan? Of course there is no checklist.  : My experience of becoming a Pagan is most likely different to others; as all things are naturally individual and unique. : Organised religion has attempted to unify and simplify understanding of the spiritual to such a vast extent that it is now neither proper understanding, nor is it really spiritual. Certain religions have succeeded in producing programmed clones carrying a payload of a few simple viruses of belief, with which they seek to infect others who don’t use the firewall of discernment, the anti-spyware of education, and the anti-virus of intelligence.

Firstly in becoming a Pagan one will come to develop the understanding that all natural things are unique, and that all life is sacred; human, animal, and vegetable. As a result of this understanding one will not be unnecessarily discriminatory of others, and will recognise the sanctity of all life, regardless of nationality, race, creed, gender, sexual orientation, or religion.

There is no way of making oneself believe it, or forcing oneself to do so: Either you do or you don’t - But it’s no rigid doctrinal requisite though as such: There is no set structure that one has to adopt to the letter - All things are not equal just as all things are not deserving: Therefore favouritism can be an emotional outlet, but nevertheless favouritism in the light of recognising that no matter what one’s preferences may be, both the preferred and the partially-shunned are nevertheless unique and sacred

I personally found it helpful to study about, and often even to meet the deities; remembering that all spiritual deities are simply an aspect or sub-aspect of Divinity, whilst bearing in mind that Divinity is such an infinitely massive and supreme being - the union of all that exists, all that ever has and ever will exist, on this plane of existance as well as others, that it would be impossible to come to know all of Divinity in its entirety within a single lifetime; possibly even within infinity. (Imagine Divinity as a huge diamond with millions of different cut faces to it: Each deity is the aspect of each of those faces or aspects of the unfathomable whole of the one Divinity: This is where many err; seeing the entirety of Divinity as a single being with a single personality embodied in a master-god such as Yahweh. - (Who is a three-faceted god.) The fact is that Yahweh is a single aspect of Divinity rather than Divinity itself. (The idea of the Trinity was itself borrowed from the Sumerian Tri-Une Goddess legend.)

Whilst proceeding as above one will eventually and inevitably, as a result, at the same time as and by default, come to know oneself, and understand the personal unique individual nature of one’s own being, as well as seeking one’s own wills, desires, and aspirations. This requires a huge amount of individual honesty with oneself, as in doing so one must also confront and accept one’s own inadequacies and failings in addition to one’s assets and attributes, before seeking to deal with them. Once one has come to the understanding of who one is, as well as the true nature of one’s own individuality, one will respect oneself and others more, and also will reach a higher understanding of the reverence for the spiritual uniqueness of all things.

So what’s the best way to go about finding out more about Paganism?

You want to know about Paganism and Witchcraft; therefore, quite logically, you go to Google and type “Witchcraft” into the search bar: Google presents you with thousands of websites; a lifetime’s worth of study; but you didn’t want to spend a lifetime studying it; you wanted to glean the basic truths and make a decision on whether it was a path you wanted to follow - So you start on page 1 with the first site; http://www.witchcraft.org/ - ‘Good site; but maybe this site is a little too, shall we say, commercial and glossy, for your current needs. So you proceed through the listings, selecting sites at random, and studying those that you feel comfortable doing so with. 100 or so sites later you have learned a number of conflicting views; all backed up by other sites, yet seemingly contradicted by still others: One site may tell you that Witchcraft/Paganism, is all about love, peace, dropping out and becoming a “fluffy bunny”, being at one with nature, and displaying unlimited love for all things, while another informs you that there is no need to change a thing, as the divine resides within you, and bringing that out will give you all you need. Yet another site tells you that you should adopt a moral code based upon your newly-found Pagan ethics; while yet another seems to indicate that no moral code is necessary by the words “‘An it harm none, do as ye will.” Following this you stumble upon a Christian-edited website regarding Paganism which tells you that all Pagans unknowingly or secretly worship the Christian “Devil” and have been cleverly duped away from the “One true path that leads to salvation.” - Supposedly the Christian path; although that path probably has as many or more variations than the individual paths of Paganism.

Confused and mentally battered you ponder, and feel like giving up. So many sources and so much information; seemingly in disagreement with itself and each other depending upon its source. Which is the correct piece of information? Apart from the Christian view of Witchcraft; which is simply a method of gaining converts by denouncing any and all other paths, in a way they all are: Each individual has an individual understanding and path to Divinity which is in some way a variation of sorts upon others.

I’m going off the point here. The point I was trying to make is that one cannot use such a widely-defined search term as “Witchcraft” to find a single path within Paganism. There are many different “denominations” of Witches or Pagans. However unlike the case with regard to Christianity; nearly all, if not all, Pagans, interact peacefully with one another; whatever the denomination, whether Wiccan, Druid, Shaman, Buddhist, Hedge-Witch…Whatever. (Having said that though; there can be factious rivalries built up between male Pagans - The usual male sociality issues…) Uniting us are three major principles; firstly the universal Pagan belief that all paths lead to the same goal. : If you’re all climbing a mountain you all get to the identical summit eventually if you make it to the top, no matter which route you take. Second is the universal Pagan principle that all life is sacred and is a part of Divinity. Thirdly the Rule of Three, which is not exactly universal in its entirety, but appears in a similar form throughout Paganism; that being “Whatever you give out will be revisited upon you three times in this or future lifetimes.”(Similar to the Christian version; “What a person sows; this they shall also reap.”.) : So in short, then. : 1. We’re all going to the same objective “event”; that being ultimate enlightenment. 2. We don’t want to harm life, as life is sacred no matter whose life that is. 3. If we do harm others then we will get three times that harm back, yet if we do good to one another we get three times that good back.

What are the Paths up for choice as regards Paganism? Well there are many more than one could imagine; depending upon the individual who takes that path. The best path is the path that’s right for you. There are no “Book religions” in Paganism: (Genuine)Pagans are knowledgeable and responsible people as a whole, and we are fully aware that it is ours to bear the responsibility for every reaction resulting from our own actions. (That’s not saying that we never get it wrong or make major cock-ups.)

Auntie Sharron doesn’t have all the answers, and I’m speaking from my own personal experience of my own personal path at all times; although everything I write is in agreement with Pagan doctrine as far as I am aware. I’m not advising everyone to become a Pagan, unless it’s right for them. I have no insecure desire to “convert” people to my way of thinking. I’d just like people to start thinking; thinking for themselves, rather than blindly following blind halfwits like the proverbial sheep to the slaughter. When people have decided upon their path for themselves, using their own reasoning with a totally unbiased and fully open mind and without any coercion or brainwashing whatsoever, then their opinion is a valid one as far as that person is concerned at a personal level.

Having gained this understanding one also gains perception of the energies and powers available to one, and learns over time in tandem with Spirit and deity how to use and manipulate those energies both for the good of others, of the earth, of the universe, as well as for the good of oneself. As a consequence of this one becomes empowered with true spiritual understanding, and receives one’s “awakening”; learning how to perceive using one’s third eye, gaining intuitive insight and perception of things both seen and unseen with one’s physical eyes: One therefore gains further knowledge and understanding, contributing to the overall enlightenment of the soul, deepening one’s understanding of all of the above; and from there is an upward spiral of enlightenment, with the added bonus of “sight beyond seeing”, (Which I actually asked for at an earlier stage, and was granted: Since I was at that time much more physically routed than in the spiritual, I saw the wiring under the board, the invisible structure, of modern society; and believe me it was pretty ugly, (I love these sensible oxymorons!) and shocked me to the core from the insight into the corruption, intrigue, mass subterfuge, and intrusion form virtually every facet of the politico-religious framework of the mass-hysteria we call a “free-society”. In fact a so-called “free society” is about as free as a high-security prisoner under 24-hour guard; but it could be worse, indeed it has been in certain places at certain times throughout history.)

Coupled with the action and implementation of true positive wholesome magick within one’s life, and the knowledge, joy, peace, love, and understanding which flows from Divinity through deity to one, and returns to Divinity charged with the power of the circle, to flow out once again on its journey invigorating, empowering, renewing…Just a tiny part of the universal whole which is a mere dot within all of existance. - But that’s another story.

Peace.

Namaste’

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We’ve heard moans twice from Apple Fanboi Michael Arrington; but we want to be convinced that it’s not just one voice in the darkness.

Well here it is: The post you never expected to see from one of the new Apple fanboys:-

“Apple Showing Warning Signs”
Posted Aug 28, 2008 by David Risley 

“As many of my readers know, I have converted pretty much everything to Apple products. I am now a Mac user and recently I switched to the Iphone. As of a few days ago, even my keyboard is built by Apple. I am a fan of the company and their products, but I am seeing big red flares that are showing signs of trouble on the horizon.”

(I think that’s meant to be iPhone; but ‘easy typo either way.)

-So David says; and I quote “I am a fan of the company and their products“. Fair enough: Each to their own. He continues:-

“Why I Like Apple“

“It continues to be funny when I witness the emotional reaction Apple can get out of people. A lot of non-Apple geeks are quick to dismiss me as a “fanboy” because I like Apple. Such a reaction is really asinine and, ironically, often comes from people who would buy Apple if not for monetary reasons…”

Help me Wikipedia:

“By 1990 the term was being used in popular music and science fiction circles, and as electronic entertainment gained popularity, the term became increasingly applied to computers and video game consoles - with people often developing an obsessive loyalty towards one platform or brand.”

“Current subjects of such obsessive loyalty include areas of: TV shows; movies; music; anime; comic books; cars; video game consoles, video games and MMORPGs; and computer operating systems, hardware and software—and more recently politics.”

“”Fanboy” was added to the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary in 2008.^“

Next:

 

 

“…But, There Are Warning Signs”

“While I have admired the user-centric design of Apple products, the company has been showing some signs of losing touch. Some examples:

1. Iphone battery life has been a complaint, and it seems really stupid not to have it be user replaceable.
2. The Iphone software has been a bit buggy, worse for some than others. I’ve had my Iphone crash many times. I’ve had it slow down or features stop working that required a restart to fix.
3. No copy & paste on the Iphone? Stupid, stupid stupid. This is OS design 101.
4. The MacBook Air hasn’t been that high quality and many have been reporting stupid problems with it.
5. MobileMe has been a huge ball of fail since it launched, showing once again that Apple is horrible when it comes to anything on the Internet. And the fact that they’re charging money for it when it can all be done for free elsewhere is dumb. Apple tossed users some free time for their troubles, but all that is is free time using a barely functional service. Also, the fact that all the .Mac customers were automatically moved into this crappy service is a case of very poor customer service.
6. There have been complaints about decreased built quality on the MacBooks and MacBook Pros. “

                    Fail                                                   Better

“What I’m sensing is a bunch of Apple users who really want to continue liking Apple, but are having to find ways to explain the parade of bonehead moves and buggy products coming from the company.”

That last sentance was very well written and extremely spot-on-target: Those people are called “Apple fanboys/girls”.

Of course, not being a fanboy himself - and any suggestion that he might actually be a fanboy being “really asinine“; David doesn’t fit anywhere near into that category:

“In all fairness, most computer companies release crappy stuff. I guess Apple is held to a higher standard because of their marketing and the loyal following that they have. Perhaps Apple is just showing us one thing: they’re a computer company just like any other computer company.”

Of course; that’s not actually anything like “ways to explain the parade of bonehead moves and buggy products coming from the company.” : It’s just an excuse for darling Apple’s incompetence - ‘All companies cock-up from time to time: Apple are no different; in fact they’re much better at cocking up than any other company.’

Exactly; just one of the many things they do better than anyone else, isn’t it?

You read it first here; unless you read it first there: Apple cocked up - As admitted under a veil by an Apple…non-fanboy himself.

My analysis? Apple have lost it: I foresee a lot of their market-sector gains dwindling slowly back to much how they were. I see the crown falling from Jobsweh’s head. As a Microsoft fan I don’t see any immediate advantage to Microsoft. I would say that Linux will continue to make small gains from both M$ and Apple, at least until Windows 7 is released.

Do I see Linux reaching 10% market-sector impact? It’s possible but unlikely in my estimation. I won’t rule it out altogether, but Linux had its day; in fact around 3650+ of them. Ubuntu have made inroads in a sense; but the various distros are still proving difficult to give away; even in the light of Microsoft’s shot in its own foot with Vista.

??

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Have you ever visited a site and been redirected straight to a page saying something like:

“WARNING! Your computer is infected! Our initial scans have detected a possible malware infestation on your computer. Click here for a free full scan.”

So this advertiser is claiming to have scanned my files without my permission and found malware? Alarm-bells sound straight away. Whether I click “Scan Now” or “Cancel” their alleged malware scanner begins working: Clever that, as there’s no internet communication as such during this “scan”; and the only thing that’s been loaded onto my computer is a Flash animation.

Before I can think clearly the “in-depth scan” is over and reports that I have X amount of trojans and Y amount of other malicious programs on my PC! Wow: The only way that they could have got on there is if the advertiser had just put them there. I cancel the page and run a malware scan using XoftSpySE. The scan reveals 10 low-risk spyware cookies; at least 6 of which were put there by this advert. The Ad goes on to tell me that I should pay for their software which can find malware that other programs can’t…

Years ago I once downloaded a program called “Spyware Nuker” which used advertising tactics just like this, onto a clean install of Windows 98SE on a new hard-drive which I’d formatted in FAT32 that day. This HD had never been exposed to the internet before then but Spyware Nuker found oodles of malware and claimed it had fixed all of the problems. I uninstalled Spyware Nuker and ran Ad-Aware free edition - It found a trojan and loads of spyware that Spyware Nuker had planted on my system.

My guess is that the program you’re now considering downloading will do much the same. Here’s what actually happened:-

The URL that you typed redirected your browser to the advertiser’s URL, where the ad including a small flash animation and a few spyware cookies were loaded up to your HD. The “Scan Now/Cancel” panel was overall linked to a single link, which told the flash animation to run. After it had run, feigning a scanner GUI, the window uploaded a few names of various malware components at random from a database on the server and displayed them as infections on your computer.

The intention was for you to say

“OMG I have these infections that my current antispyware missed - What a clever piece of software! I must buy it now.”

Probably when you purchase it it’ll upload all those infections to your computer along with some others, it’ll then eradicate the infections it says it found, leaving you with the others it wasn’t supposed to find: Now you have a compromised system that is at the mercy of whoever has paid the highest price for use of your new bot - And worst of all if you’re not that computer-savvy, you’ll never know anything about it unless your ISP contacts you with a complaint.

Advice: If you ever see an Ad appear telling you that your computer is infected; close the page or ignore it - Don’t even bother with it. You might try telling the webmaster of the site that you intended to visit about this; as the webmaster may be unaware that their new advertising that they’ve just signed up for is run by unethical enterprise.

Remember, on the internet; if it sounds too good to be true then it is: 999 out of 1000 times there’s no “probably” about it.  If several reputable programs find no spyware, then one that you’ve never heard of informs you that your computer is infested; it’s fairly safe to assume that you’re being conned; especially if that program is over-hasty to grab your business at all costs.

Some advertising does have a funny side though:

————————–

Seriously now:

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§ Complete PC scanning, including running processes, registry entries, files and folders

§ Detects and removes: adware, spyware, pop-Up generators, keyloggers, trojans, hijackers, and malware

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§ Automatic definition and feature updates

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The first thing I’d like to say is that this is the 100th post to this blog; which I consider quite an achievement in around six weeks considering everything, even though I do say so myself - So first off here’s to celebrate. (Yes I know it’s only 100, and yes there are hundreds, even thousands, more to come. This is my way of saying “Well done Sharron” to myself.) A small celebration; and then on with the show:-

Fire Your Computer Technician!

A computer technician spills the beans and makes available the knowledge he has charged clients hundreds in service fees for.

CLICK HERE

From the foldermarker.com website:-

“Folder Marker - a helper which can mark folders by priority (high, normal, low), by degree of work complete (done, half-done, planned) and by the type of information contained in the folder (work files, important files, temp files, private files).

Folder Marker is distributed in three editions. Compare them.”

PREVIEW:

Here’s a section of my desktop showing the multicoloured folder icons:

I hope you find this program useful; even for making your desktop look prettier if nothing else. Enjoy.

Connecting two transistors as a Darlington pair by connecting the emitter of the first transistor directly to the base of the second transistor multiplies the beta of the first transistor by the beta of the second transistor to give an extremely high-gain device.

Imagine, for instance; two NPN devices, each with a maximum gain of 50, connected in such a way, giving a device with a maximum gain of 2500: This would be useful for boosting the output of a piezo-microphone for example; notorious for its low output.

In the basic circuit-diagram of a Darlington amplifier below; the input is DC decoupled by C1, resistors R1 and 2 form a potential divider biasing the base of Q1 at exactly 0.7 Volts, R3 is the load resistor on the collector of Q1 - which drives the base of Q2; R4 restricting its collector load, and the R4/C2 combination decoupling its emitter to ground.

Since the base of Q1 is at 0.7 Volts, both Q1 and 2 will be in an “always on” state, and sensitive to any tiny ripple passing through the input capacitor C1.

Bearing in mind that the input ripple will probably be of only a few microamperes; the R1,2 pair should be selected with as high a resistance as possible - Within the megohm range to limit the current already present on the base of Q1 to a fraction of a microampere if at all possible.

Q1 should be chosen such that its base current need only be negligible for it to respond. With a beta of 50 the resistance of R3 should be within the range of around -2 to -40 times that of R1, so as not to drive the transistor into saturation.

Again, having a beta of 50; Q2 should be run ideally at between 2 and 40 gain.

Suggested component values to run the circuit at a voltage of 1.5 Volts are as follows:-

R1: 2M2, R2:(1M with 250K Lin. Preset in series.) R3: 100K, R4: 22K, R5: 110R

C1: 1uF 10V Elect., C2: 100uF 10V Elect., C3: 10uF 10V Elect.

Q1: BC107B, Q2: BC109C

Note: I haven’t built this circuit myself; and it’s been drawn up for demonstration purposes only: It’s very basic and wouldn’t give brilliant sound quality anyway, but should nevertheless “work”.

The Windows operating system’s GUI can be like a complicated maze that takes years to get used to finding your way around. I’ve personally been using XP for years and still occasionally struggle to remember where certain things are.

A remedy for this is a little icon that you can unzip to your desktop that, when clicked, brings up a click-able listing of features in a box; some of which are buried deep in the operating system - and if you’re like me you can never remember the command-line for them to save time either.

It’s called “Windows in a Box”; that’s Windows; not Window’s: The person who developed it must be one of those people who inserts an apostrophe before the s in every word that ends in s. Forgetting the spell-lames for now though, this little box can be most useful to virtually anyone. - Oh; and it’s free too BTW.

For example; if you’re not aware that to run the Direct X Diagnostic program (in XP) you need to open a command prompt and type “dxdiag”, or find the link to it buried deep in the GUI, then the shortcut is right there in Windows in a Box, and only requires a click.

The following text is quoted from the Softpedia website, and includes a download link:-

“Access all the features of windows XP on your desktop”

“Ever get tired of searching for a setting inside the control panel?
Inside Windows XP are hundreds of settings that require endless clicking through the Operating System that can get really frustrating. Windows in a box was designed to eliminate all that.
Sits on your desktop, easy to navigate, and puts an end to all the frustration of endless searching for settings.
Spyware, Adware and Malware free. Requires little memory to run, and nothing to install.”

Softpedia Secure Download (US)

Today is a “Bank Holiday” in the UK; which is Brit talk for “skive”: That applies to the employed-only populous though: I’m continuing much as usual here, although I did get a chance to finally see a few people I’ve been meaning to see for a while earlier.

It’s been a bumper weekend as far as hits are concerned on this blog; and my thanks to all who made it so: I hope you found the information that you were looking for and that it was useful to you.

In this b