Definition

kext stands for Kernel Extension and is an extension used by special files in the Mac operating system (OS). These files are often pretty small and act as an interface between the core of the OS and hardware (such as WiFi-cards, Bluetooth-cards, trackpads, graphic cards), filesystems and other items central to the OS’s operation. They can be written and compiled in different programs, but many people use XCode because of the compability and ease of compiling. When working with osx86-installations or hackintosh-related systems, one often needs to write modified kext’s to enable the OS to recognize certain hardware - without them a “hacked” Mac OS would not be possible.

Where are the kext’s located?

In the Mac operating system, most, if not all, kext’s are located in the same place - the /System/Library/Extensions folder. At boot, all the kext’s needed are cached into a file called Extensions.mkext prior to being loaded. To clear the extension cache after installing a new kext, simply delete this file and it will be re-created (resulting in a slightly slower boot speed). If you’re looking to start coding your own extension, you might want to check out Apple’s Dev Center’s kext section - it includes examples and tutorials to get you started.

How do I install a kext?

The simplest and most straight-forward method of installing and applying a kext is to use the Kext Helper application. Simply install it, run it, choose the kext you wish to apply and enter your password - it will do the job for you, backing up any kext’s you overwrite and even optionally showing you what it’s doing. Upon completion, restart your computer and your new kext will be applied!
If you’re looking for a more advanced way of applying a kext, you can follow the following steps:

#1
Rename the kext you will be updating - doing this will ensure you have a backup of your old kext in case any problems arise.
cd /System/Library/Extensions
mv KextName.kext KextName.old

#2
Copy the kext to the main kext-folder.
cd /path/to/new/kext (put your downloaded kext path here)
cp -R KextName.kext /System/Library/Extensions

#3
Next, you must alter the permissions of the file in order to allow the system to execute it (make it an executable).
cd /System/Library/Extensions
chmod -R 755 KextName.kext
chown -R 0:0 KextName.kext (this will set the ownership on the file to you)
rm /System/Library/Extensions.mkext (removing the kext cache in order to update the kexts)

Hope this cleared up some of the questions that often arise! Good luck with your modding!

Sources
http://forums.macnn.com/79/developer-center/81624/what-is-a-kext-file/
http://www.ihackintosh.com/2009/02/what-is-kextwhere-is-kext-how-to-install-kext/

Google’s invitation system works like this - I nominate people for invites and after an unspecified amount of time they will get their invite sent from Google. Thus, you will not receive your invite immediately - I’m sorry about this but there is nothing I can do!

As I mentioned, I am handing out the 20 invites I have in stock. All you need to do to get an invite is to leave a comment in the post, which you can do below. Include a valid email address and I will nominate it - provided there haven’t been 20 people commenting before you!

Good luck, this is a first come first served situation!

Advantages with WordPress

• Blogger-friendliness - feature-wise, WordPress beats ExpressionEngine when it comes to catering bloggers. The ease of instaling plug-ins, the ability to save drafts, the simple way to add tags and categories, the robust way to incorporate images into posts - all this makes WordPress stand out.
• Style and styling - face it - WordPress is very sleek. Everything about it is very Web2.0, shiny, simple and stylish. That alone, and the broad range of themes available to further make it sleeker puts WordPress ahead of many platforms; especially ExpressionEngine as it has very few downloadable themes.
• Price and license - WordPress is free and open-source. ExpressionEngine is also free if a personal license is used, but it’s not open-source. Open-source not only usually produce great software, but it also conveys a message of trustworthiness to the users - increasing WordPress’s popularity.
• Add-on functionality - this is a big one. WordPress is more popular and wide-spread than ExpressionEngine and this shows; plug-ins, scripts, tutorials, articles and other material related to WordPress is much easier to find and is so vast that as a regular blogger one will never face a problem without a solution or lack of functionality.

There is still a lot of things holding me back, though. ExpressionEngine is a wonderful engine for people who build and maintain websites for many reasons - here are a few.

Advantages with ExpressionEngine

• The Template-way of building a site - the way ExpressionEngine handles templates is absolutely wonderful. It is incredibly straight-forward and requires no tutoring before-hand - the basics structure and function is so easy and logic to understand that even a novice, regular blogger might be attracted!
• Control - what I mean by this is the extensive control ExpressionEngine gives you when building a site. You know exactly what you display and how much resources this takes - and as you’re the one writing the code that displays you know exactly what you’re looking at. WordPress, being very simple and easy-to-use, gives you a complete and ready-to-use template and you’re never really sure how many database requests are made, how much resources are allocated and what scripts are loaded - and if you’re in need of control you’ll have to go through every bit of code by yourself. Now this doesn’t apply to most regular bloggers, which are those WordPress caters to, but it is nonetheless an issue that ExpressionEngine overcomes.
• Userbase - as ExpressionEngine is used by numerous professional website-agencies and consultants, its community forums is frequented by people who know what they’re talking about - people who give the right advice at the right time. Not only with coding issues but with general questions concerning websites and everything around it. WordPress has an amazing userbase too, and of course numerous web agencies use their engine too - but you’ll never get the closeness and the same warm helping hand as you get with ExpressionEngine.

That covers only three advantages, yes, but they are three major advantages and do actually outweigh WordPress’s. I love the way ExpressionEngine works and it just plain suits me, that’s why I will stick with it in the future too. Here’s a little comment I wrote on Joshua Wood’s site Distance to Here.

I’m considering switching to WordPress too, mainly because (as you mentioned) the blogging features outrun ExpressionEngine completely. I love ExpressionEngine too, I love everything about it - the templates system and overall the simplicity and the closeness to how one would develop a site completely in PHP…
Is WordPress easy to skin? Is the template engine as straight-forward as ExpressionEngine’s?

Oh and I read you were talking about EE2.0 and its release coming up soon. With all due respect, EE2.0 has had a scheduled release the past 1.5 years (although it seems to have a final release-date set now, actually), and I think a lot of people (including me) have waited way too long for it and are getting tired.

Hopefully EE2.0 brings some blogger-friendly features along - otherwise I doubt EE can keep attracting customers other than purely developers and/or consultants. What are your ideas?

Appearance, feel and weight

The outer parts of the lens are coated in a black, rubber-ish material with a special feel to it. It has a definite touch of quality and style, and besides being rather good to look at, it comes very much in handy when zooming or focusing (as it provides good grip). The filter-size of 58mm means many lenshoods and filters will fit - many of them making the lens look very professional when viewed at a distance. Weighing around 550g it’s neither clumsy nor difficult to handle, and it feels very good when resting in one’s hand.

Features and quality of image

As I lack different lenses to test, I can’t really comment on the quality of it. All I can say is that I am happy with the quality - it’s enough for my needs. At maximum zoom a tripod is mandatory as the lowest aperture one can shoot at it 5.6. Also, due to its lack of Vibration Reduction (VR) (Nikon’s stabilizing engine), hand-shot images can sometimes be slightly blurry if taken in low lighting-conditions. It has a built-in auto-focus engine that does its job - however if you let it work too much it will consume a lot of battery!
The reason the lens is called a macro-lens is because of its ability to focus at objects at a mere 1.5 meters distance! If you select the special “macro-mode” this distance is even lower - 95cm! This means one can come very close to subjects and still get a crisp, clear image - very handy to say the least.

Conclusion

The SIGMA 70-300mm lens is a great lens for amateur photographers looking for some serious zoom. Shooting at 300mm is fun and interesting - this lens will unlock the door to a whole new world of detailed photography. Examples of areas of use are during sports-events, wildlife photography and portrait photography. Considering its very low price, a minimum of around $200, it is an excellent addition to your collection of lenses if you’re lacking tele-zoom abilities.

• Pros
  • Price
  • Quality and feel
  • Appearance
  • Zoom capabilities

• Cons

  • Lack of Vibration Reduction (VR)
  • Small aperture
  • Badly optimized auto-focus engine

The first thing you see is a list of the sites you’ve added - in this case the only one is my blog, douglasstridsberg.com. Next to the site is a small box showing pageviews and visits in a neat little graph. After clicking on my site, I am taken to a sort of dashboard where I can watch all the latest statistics rolling in. I see a map, some graphs and a side-bar menu along with a lot of little information about referrers, keywords, searches and other things. Everything is neatly arranged in neat colors and in an overall very friendly user-interface.

I am pleased with Woopra. As the screenshot shows, I’ve only just begun using it - and it will perhaps take a while before it truly shows its beauty. Apparent they are closing their beta sign-ups - so you’ll have to wait before getting one!

The display

The first thing about the new Sony Ericsson XPERIA X5 (just X5 in short) you will notice is the display. Not only does it sport the usual you’d expect from Sony Ericsson - high resolution and crisp, clear pixels - but the display itself is transparent! It’s like looking through a piece of tinted glass, except for the fact that the piece of glass can display text, images, videos and even games! The only major downside to it is the lack of colors, although I personally am not missing it too much.

The outside

The rest of the phone consists of a glossy black keypad, all in one piece except for the lines dividing the numbers and the Call, the center and the Cancel buttons. When lit up, the three mentioned buttons glow with a green, white and red light respectively. The + and - volume buttons are placed one on each side, in line with the three main buttons. On the sides there is also the power input and the SIM-card slot. On the back side of the phone the back side of the display is visible (which you of course can see through) and the small power button.

Built-in battery

What’s interesting about the XPERIA X5, apart from the display, is the way it handles battery and storage. The X5 features a built-in media-storage module of up to 2GB’s - enough to fit more than 500 standard-sized MP3’s - and a built-in regular storage of around 100MB’s. It also has, in contrast to most other phones, a built-in battery. I suspect the reason Sony Ericsson chose to build the battery inside of the phone was to avoid the extra cost and vulnerability of a battery cover.

Light-weight

Although the X5 lacks a camera, it’s a great mobile phone. The design of the outside, not to forget the design of the menus inside the phone (!) gives a very luxurious impression and modern impression. Most, if not all, standard features are there (such as Bluetooth, radio, synchronization, music player and fast 3G internet). Thanks to its design, the X5 is very light weight and small, it can be used by a lot of different people with different lifestyles.

Conclusion

I love this phone. Sure, the lack of colors can be annoying at times and it sure would be fun to have a built-in GPS and WiFi internet. But for anyone, ranging from businessmen to simply every-day users, the Sony Ericsson XPERIA X5 is a great phone. Just wait until it reaches the markets, I guess!

The XBOX is Microsoft’s old gaming console - it was good at the time and it still is. My goal is to educate people about everything there is to know in and around the XBOX. I’ve written content about connecting the XBOX to a TV, changing the harddrive in the XBOX and a lot more!

For this purpose, I’ve started Thy Old XBOX. Please, visit the site and read some of the articles and do comment on the content if you wish!

#1

Open Spotify and log in with your credentials. Click Edit in the top-hand menu and then press Preferences….

#2

Set the Proxy to HTTPS and enter these details as your host and port:
Host: 213.203.241.210
Port: 80
Make sure your settings look like mine:

Now, play your favorite music without ads interrupting! Comment back if this works for you!

Other notes

A reader by the name Christoffer had an idea about how this fix works. Here’s what he said:

But I’m pretty sure that I understand why it did work before. They seem to have targeted the ads to the countries in which it was possible to register for spotify only, so if you used a proxy from a country with no ads, you wouldn’t get any at all.

Sounds like a reasonable explanation, does it not?

The Coffee Desk has an article about the Wikipedia Beta, highlighting the design, the search function, the use of AJAX and the new text-editor. As I have been unable to test this Beta myself, I leave you to read that article!

How does AutoISO help you then? Well, imagine you’re shooting indoors. The lighting conditions can change rapidly and you need to take well-exposed shots all the time. Keeping a firm ISO is not flexible enough whilst constantly changing the ISO-sensitivity is not time-efficient. The AutoISO-feature keeps you shooting at a fast shutter speed all the time by making much faster and more accurate changes to the ISO-sensitivity on-the-fly.

All-in-all the AutoISO-feature is a great tool and is well worth the time to try it out!

VIPRE Antivirus features, other than its very intuitive and sleek design, advanced anti-rootkit technology, real-time monitoring with its Active Protection™ and a unique and very resource-friendly anti-virus and spyware engine.
VIPRE is highly worth a try, whether you’re satisfied with your current antivirus or not, and you can now download the free working 15-day trial to do so now!

After trying /douglas and actually getting a message that the name was available - miliseconds later chaning status to taken - I finally rested my mind on /dstridsberg. Not too bad, but perhaps /douglas.stridsberg would have been better?

I don’t know, and I sure was way too fired up to think about anything else at the very moment…

I did, though, have a chat with the Douglas that received /douglas and in his timezone (6 hours behind mine) he only just had to stay up till 12AM (which isn’t that late considering its a Friday night). Life’s unfair - isn’t it?

Anyway, I’m still rather happy with my new facebook username, Douglas Stridsberg! Perhaps this will in some way or another favor my Google search rankings?

Have you ever encountered such an error on Google?

#1

Download the Safari Beta from Apple’s homepage and mount it or unpack it anywhere.

#2

Open the Safari4.0BetaUninstall.pkg file and complete the steps necessary to uninstall the software. Note that after the uninstall, you will not have a working web browser unless you install another browser!

After these steps and a restart your MSN Messenger should be working fine!

Introduction

This guide will cover just how easy it is to play TV on your computer using nothing but software and internet. I was amazed at how well it worked, and although the quality could have been better the choice of channels makes up for it.
This guide involves, as stated above, an acquisition of PCSatelliteTV and you may choose in which way you do this.

Install

Install the program using custom or standard settings, either way works well. No crucial configuration is needed during the installation process. I found some trouble with NOD32 giving virus warnings however I found that the warnings were only issued to the temporary files that were extracted - not the final product.

Scan for channels (optional)

Before opening the program you may want to scan for channels. This extremely slow process (can take hours) scans a directory for any channel available. I have as of now not fully completed a scan like this, so I can’t tell you whether it’s useful or not.

To start the scan, open the Scan Channels.exe file in your installation directory (the one you specified during installation), press the Scan For Available Channels  and let it sit for a long time. A progress bar will tell you how much is left.

Conclusion

After all of this it’s time to enjoy your TV! Open up the main PCSatelliteTV application and doubleclick on any channel to start playing. The quality could be much better and some channels fail to work entirely, but at least it’s TV - and not only free channels but also paid ones.
It does its job - it works, but of course it can be made much better.

Screenshots

ESPN Nascar
Al Jazeera

Using Live View drastically shortens the time you’re able to use your camera on its batteries, unless you plug it in to a charger. As new images constantly have to be rendered on the screen - many frames per second and often a high brightness - this easily drains your batteries.

Accuracy? - I don’t think so…

What Live View shows cannot in any way reflect what the viewfinder shows, nor how your subject really looks. A lot of times you can be lead into believing that colors, brightness and even sharpness is correctly tuned - after taking the picture you see that none of this corresponds to what was taken.

Unnecessary icons and information

A display is usually cluttered with icons, information and lots of other things that really can disturb when taking photos. A good viewfinder has all the information placed outside the actual image, and only the focus is actually shown.

Stability is lost

Imagine yourself holding your camera so that you can see the Live View. This requires most people to hold the camera away from the body and head to be able to see anything. Although you might be holding with two hands there is still a lack of stability and you will often encounter unsharp images - simply due to shaking. Looking through a viewfinder eliminates this as your head is helping to keep the camera stable.

You have to look cool when taking photos!

Look at someone taking a picture using the Live View and compare it with someone who is using the viewfinder. Go figure, viewfinder is a lot cooler. End of discussion.

• Intel Pentium 4, 3.0GHz (15 x 200) dualcore
• MSI PT8 Neo-V (5 PCI, 1 AGP, 2 DDR DIMM, Audio, LAN)  VIA Apollo P4X533
• 1024 MB (DDR SDRAM)
• ATI Radeon HD 2400 Series (256 MB)
• MAXTOR S TM3160211AS (160 GB, 7200 RPM, SATA-II)
• DVD-RW Drive
• FireWire-1934 Connections

Description

A newly built PC with a fast Intel processor and a robust motherboard from MSI gives you all the performance you need for surfing the web, playing less intense games or watching HD-videos on large screens.
The ATI GPU-card is one of the more modern and faster AGP cards and can handle high resolutions and intense action. FireWire and USB2.0 ports are added for your convenience.
The Operating System installed is an original Windows Vista Ultimate with all updates and drivers pre-installed!

I published this computer on a buy-and-sell-site in Sweden and set the price to about €234, hoping to attract people looking for a cheap alternative to expensive powerhouses - which still can run most games and act as a great media-computer.

And after a few weeks I finally did manage to get it sold - for €234, a very good price if you ask me!

What do you think? Opinions? Suggestions?

The study of organic chemistry is the study of the chemistry of carbon compounds. Not all carbon compounds are counted as organic, the rule excludes carbonates (x-CO₃), carbon monoxide (CO) and carbon dioxide (CO₂).
Hydrocarbons contain hydrogen (H) and carbon only. They are divided into groups such as alkanes, alkynes, alkenes and alcohols, and are homologous series. Homologous series are, accodring to tiscali.co.uk, “any of a number of series of organic compounds with similar chemical properties in which members can be described by a general formula and ofen differ by a constant relative molecular mass”.

Alkanes

Alkanes are, thanks to their purely single carbon bonds (C-C), saturated. Physical properties include low melting- and boiling points considering the molar mass. They do not conduct, have low densities and do not solve in water.

Examples

• Methane - CH₄
• Ethane - C₂H₆
• Propane - C₃H₈
• Butane - C₄H₁₀
• Pentane - C₅H₁₂
• Hexane - C₆H₁₄

Alkenes

Alkenes have one double carbon bond (C=C), and as they have at least one double bond they are unsaturated. Physical properties include the appearance; ranging from colorless gas to black solids, the non-conductivity, the low melting- and boiling points, the low densities, the insolubility in water and the volatility - as alkenes react rather much due to their double bond (resulting in either combustion or addition).
Examples of addition can be found when mixing an alkene (or any other unsaturated hydrocarbon) with Bromine water. When shaken, unsaturated hydrocarbons decolorize the solution.
Also, ethene forms ethanol when reacted with water, essentially saturating the unsaturated hydrocarbon. This process is often used in margarine production, to state an example.

Examples

• Ethene - C₂H₄
• Propene - C₃H₆
• Butene - C₄H₈

Alcohols

Physical properties of alcohols include liquid state at room temperature, rather high volatility (resulting in combustion), lack of color, low melting- and boiling points, low densities (compared to water) and a lack of conductivity.
Among the chemical properties one finds a low reactivity. The uses for alcohols are in beverages and foods as well as in fuel and disinfectors.
Alcohols are made using two different processes - fermentation of sugar and hydration of ethene.
The process of fermentation is to convert glucose sugar (C₆H₁₂O₆) into alcohol (CH₃CH₂OH) and carbon dioxide (CO₂) - essentially adding yeast to sugar.
The process of hydrating ethene is to add water in a gaseous form (H₂O) to ethene (C₂=C₂), also in a gaseous form. Ethene is mixed with the water steam and passed over a catalyst consisting of solid silicon dioxide coated with phosphoric(V) acid, all under a pressure of 60-70 atmospheres and a temperature of nearly 300°C.

Examples

• Methanol - CH₃OH
• Ethanol - CH₅OH (or CH₃CH₂OH)
• Propanol - CH₇OH (or CH₃CH₂CH₂OH)

The European Union (EU) was founded in 1958 as the European Economic Community (ECC). In 1968 it changed name to the European Community (EC) and later to the European Union in 1993.

Background

After the Second World War Western Europe faced two political and one economic threat;

• the fear of a German retaliation and uprising (mostly a French concern),
• the fear of the Communists and Russia (mostly an Anglosaxian concern),
• and the fear of poverty and starvation mostly in Germany and France.

The political answer to these threats was two organizations;

• NATO (North Atlantic Trade Organization) was formed to keep Russia out of Europe, to keep Germany’s economy down and to keep America inside European affairs,
• and the EEC (European Economic Community), to somewhat co-operate with Germany but also to hinder her from an all too great economy.

Objective

The overall objective was peace through proper handling of Germany and Russia, disabling Germany from rebuilding an army and keeping Russia out of Europe. Also, a key part of success was prosperity through economic co-operation and cultural exchange within member countries.

Controversy

Generally speaking, there are two camps in the EU - the federalists and the confederalists, being somewhat opposites

Federalists

• More power to Brussels through EMU (European Monetary Union with its currency - the €uro), foreign policies and other co-operation.
• The EU should be a supranational organization, i.e. an organization which stands above national governments.

Examples of federalist countries are the Benelux, Germany, France and others.

Confederalists

• Less power to Brussels, as economic co-operation suffices.
• The EU should be an international organization, thus more power will remain on a national level.

Examples of confederalist countries are Sweden, the United Kingdom and Denmark.

Steps of Integration

In 1947, the Council of Europe was founded. Due to controversy, the unity became powerless. In 1948 the OEEC (the Organizations of European Economic Co-operation) was formed, mainly as a result of the Marshal Plan in the USA. Both these unions failed due to controversy between federalists and confederalists (see above).

In 1949, NATO (the North American Trade Organization) was formed. It brought European politicians together for the first time.

In 1951 the Paris Treaty (the European Coal & Steel Community, ECSC) was signed to solve issues with the struggle of federalists versus confederalists. The ECSC was a common market in coal and steel, designed to aid member countries to control production, prevent wars and increase efficiency in trade and production.

In 1958 the Treaty of Rome (and essentially the EEC) was signed and put into action. The treaty is a consitution - it describes the objectives of the EEC and regulates how it is to be governed. The Treaty of Rome merged three organizations into one - the ECSC, EEC and the European Atomic Energy Community (EAEC or Euratom).

The European Free Trade Association (EFTA) was founded in 1959 as a confederalist response to the EEC. In 1962, the CAP (Common Agricultural Policy) was signed. It granted subsidies to farmers and is still in place today. In the year 1968, the Customs Union was completed, abolishing tariffs within Europe.

Between 1973 and 1985 the integration project did not evolve in a satisfactory way due to a recession and an oil crisis. This resulted in unemployment problems and lead to increased protectionism, which eventually lead to non-tariff barriers to trade. During these years however, there was a territorial expansion. Six new members entered the union - Denmark, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Greece, Portugal and Spain.

The Single Market (1985-1992)

Definition

The general “single market” term refers to a customs union combined with the four freedoms - free movement of goods, services, labor and capital. To achieve free trade you must not only remove tariffs but also remove non-tariff barriers to trade. Decisions in the Council of Ministers (see below) at the time required unanimity to pass, thus hindering the removal of the said barriers.

Background

In 1985 however a movement to introduce a Single Market began. The background to this was the high unemployment rates, remaining at 10-15%, and the threat from the Pacific economy (USA and its trade partners).
A single market would lead to free trade which would lead to more competition - therefore lowering prices. The economic objective was that the lowered prices would lead to welfare and a more competitive Europe - the political objective was to increase integration inside Europe (again, a part of the Steps of Integration). This all made the introduction of a Single Market very important.
Thanks to the Single European Act in 1987 and its ammendation of the treaties, decisions concerning trade and the economy now only required 2/3 percentual majority. An action-plan - the White Paper - was in 1985 established to remove all non-tariff barriers to trade. The “Cassis de Dijon”-principle set and example of how future cases were to be handled; if a good or service is allowed to be sold in one country, it cannot be prohibited in another EU country.

Institutions of the EU

The Council of Ministers

The Council of Ministers is the lawmaking (legislative) body of the European Union. The decision about new laws are made in conjunction with the EU parliament. The laws (also called directives or regulations) passed in the Council are “above” the national laws passed by national parliaments. National ministers are sent from the capitols to discuss and come to agreements. Thus, this institution is the voice of the member countries.
Since the said ministers are not elected by the people, there is a democratic deficit. The said deficit is also present due to the lack of openness (transparency) in the Council, hindering the media from getting instant access to protocols and other documents.

The European Commission

The European Commission is the executive body, the government if you will, of the European Union. As it initiates proposals in the law-making process, the Commission gains a lot of power when laws are to be made. It also ensures that member countries implement the EU regulations into their own, national legislations. Loyalty costs a lot - European Commissioners are generally very well paid.

The European Parliament

The European Parliament makes new laws (regulations) together with the Council of Ministers, although it’s not as powerful as the Council itself due to the limited areas in which the Parliament makes laws.

The Court of Justice

The Court of Justice settles economic disputes between not only companies but also countries. The Court also interprets the common European Union legislation.

The European Council

The European Council hosts summit meetings with presidents and prime ministers. During these meetings main policies of the European Union are discussed as well as main issues for the future.

These files will increase your USB polling frequency from the Windows Vista default of 125hz to 500hz or 1000hz making your mouse much more responsive in gaming. This file will only work on the RTM/Final version of Vista 32-Bit and 64-bit. If you want the same hack under Windows XP just search google for “XP usbport.sys 500hz”.

1. Restart Vista and repeatedly press F8 to bring up the boot menu. Select Safe Mode.
2. Press Start > Run… and enter this into the box: bcdedit -set loadoptions DISABLE_INTEGRITY_CHECKS . This disabled the constant integrity checks that will disable you from overwriting system files. After the restart, it is set back to default.
3. Open the same window and this time enter this: takeown /f “C:\Windows\System32\Drivers\usbport.sys” . This commands lets you take full ownership of the usbport.sys file, enabling you to rename it.
4. Again, in the Run… box enter this: cacls “C:\Windows\System32\Drivers\usbport.sys” /G username:F . Replace username with the account you’re using on Windows. This further makes sure you are allowed to edit and rename the file.
5. Open C:\Windows\System32\Drivers and locate the existing usbport.sys, and rename it to usbport.old
6. Download this file, unzip it and copy the usbport.sys from the appropriate folder over to C:Windows\System32\Drivers.
7. Restart your computer, and use mouserate.exe to check whether the settings have had effect.

Hope this helped you!

This is how an article at Microsoft’s TechNet describes the changes in Vista’s sharing.

• The default workgroup name in Windows Vista has been changed to WORKGROUP. In Windows® XP Home Edition, the default workgroup name is MSHOME. If you upgrade a computer running Windows XP Home Edition to Windows Vista, it will keep its existing workgroup name. However, new computers with Windows Vista can have a different workgroup name than the other computers on your network. With different workgroups, it takes more time and effort to view all of the computers on the network.
• Windows Vista uses the Public folder, rather than the Shared Documents folder in Windows XP, to simplify file sharing. With Public folder sharing enabled, the public folders and all of the folders within the Public folder are automatically shared with the name Public. You do not have to configure file sharing on separate folders. You only have to either move or copy the file or folder you want to share on the network to the Public folder.
• Windows Vista by default does not allow simple file sharing. Access to shared folders, including the public folder (if shared), requires a user name and password. Simple file sharing is enabled by default in Windows XP Home Edition.

Sharing hard drives was perhaps not easy in Windows XP, but it sure is harder on Vista. It took me a while to figure out what to do, but after a bit of messing around with security settings I finally achieved what I had intended. This guide consists of five steps, and I take no responsibility for what happens with your computer!

Steps

#1

Right-click on the harddrive you intend to share. Click Properties to open a window with most changeable settings on your harddrive.

#2

Select the Security tab. In front of you is a list of the different users that have access to your hard drive. Select Everyone and click Edit….

#3

At this prompt you have the ability to change how much you want everyone to have access to. Customize this yourself, or use my settings, then apply the settings by OK-ing this window and the previous one.

#4

Now, right-click the hard drive again but this time select Share…. In the prompt (which is the sharing tab in the properties-prompt) click Advanced Sharing… and authenticate yourself if needed.

#5

In the window in front of you, check the Share this folder checkbox and enter a name for the share. If you need to specifcy the amount of simultaneous users, do so, but for most home networks this is not needed. To enable everyone to access the share, click Premissions and use either my settings or your own.

Conclusion

There are of course security implications associated with sharing an entire hard drive. You should avoid sharing the drive you’re booting from and/or using Windows on, also you should also generally be careful of how much you’re letting people do with the drive.

First of all you need the skin itself. It can be found on several places, but most notably on the uTorrent site itself. Go there and find yourself a nice looking skin, and make sure it’s called toolbar.bmp when downloaded!

Open up an Explorer window (or simply open up My Documents or any other folder) and type %AppData%\uTorrent in the adress bar. Paste the toolbar.bmp file here!
The only thing you need to do is restart (or open) uTorrent and voila! Your new skin is there!

Have fun, and comment if you find any good skins out there!

Features

What does this new release bring to you?

• A brand new and refurbished front-end design with focus on usability and simplicity - new fonts add to the Web2.0 impression.
• A print- and handheld stylesheet designed for simplicity and readability - clear fonts, less graphics and a more fluid design.
• Nintendo Wii-inspired buttons put in place for usability and simplicity.
• A little more intelligent backend with less load-times and better compression.
• jQuery integration for simple effects and the main content-slider at the front-page.
• Google-powered search.
• Clean code, clean CSS and clean RSS-feeds - one feed for every category adds simplicity and readability.

Conclusion

This has all been a lot of work for me, but I feel this is the first time I have actually had an idea all the way through. One idea being applied all through the process of the design. I’ve read e-books and gathered inspiration from interesting sources. And all this has resulted in something which I am very proud of showing you today.

I hope you like it almost as much as I do!

A sketch or two are available at the new page, go have a look!
I will hopefully bring you more news as time goes by, stay tuned!

The NSDAP after Hitler’s freeing

Hitler did not mind that the Nazi party was weak and split when he was release. Now he could take control and shape the party. At the 1926 Party Congress in Bamberg, Hitler did just this.
The Strasser group had on its side a strong PR expert, Dr. Joseph Göbbels, who intended to “defeat” Hitler at the said meeting. Instead however, Göbbels was impressed by Hitler and actually joined his camp.
Furthermore, Hitler managed to introduce some key principles into the party ground rules; the “Führer Prinzip” (i.e. Hitler would from now on be the leader and he alone would make important decisions to be obeyed) and he also decided that power was now to be reached not through violent coup d’état but rather by working within the democratic system and winning elections for the Reichstag.
After Bamberg in 1926 the main problem for Hitler remained the lack of Nazi support in the Reichstag. During the booming German economy a party of the discontented like the NSDAP had hard times winning popular support.

The NSDAP gains votes (1929->)

By 1927 the situation of German farmers was deteriorating. The Nazis reacted on this and started to go out in the countryside offering help and support to the peasants. In the elections from 1930 and onwards it became apparent that a large majority of Germany’s farmers voted Nazi.
In 1930, the last SPD Chancellor, Müller, resigned. The economic crisis was causing a massive growth of unemployment and the government couldn’t find majority support in the Reichstag for its policies.
In May 1930, Heinrich Brüning (Catholic Centre Party) was appointed Chancellor by President Hindenburg. Brüning was reluctant to increase government spending on subsidies for companies and support for the unemployed - as he had the 1923 hyperinflation in fresh memory.
At no cost did he want to risk the occurrence of a new inflation. For this, Brüning earned the nickname “The Hunger Chancellor”. He was Chancellor until 1932, running a minority coalition.
Therefore, the government was completely dependent upon the presidential emergency decree (Article 48), which was used at an increasing rate.

The Backstairs Intrigue

Brüning tried to create support for his government in 1930 by asking for new elections. However, the situation in the Reichstag just deteriorated.
The extremist parties won more seats (the NSDAP won 107 seats, the KPD 77 seats) which was quite the opposite of what he had hoped. Now he became even more dependent on the presidential decree.
The Nazi paramilitary organization, Sturmabteilung (SA), became very active, creating violence in the streets and picking fights with the communist bands.
The SA had by the early 1930’s grown into an organization of 2.5 million men, lead by Ernst Röhm. In order to try to restore calm in the cities, Brüning imposed a ban on the SA in 1930.
They were no longer allowed to parade the streets in uniform. With the dysfunctional situation in the Reichstag, influence over President Hindenburg instead became the key factor for political power.
He was during 1930-1933 very much listening to the advice of General Kurt von Schleicher.

The Intrigue evolves

von Schleicher had suggested the choice of Brüning as Chancellor. By 1932 however, von Schleicher had begun to disagree with Bru¨ning’s anti-Nazi attitude.
In May 1932, at von Schleicher’s advice, Hindenburg withdrew his support for Brüning and dismissed him. Franz von Paper was appointed and formed a government which was named the “Government of Barons” due to all of it’s ministers being noble.
Hoping for support in the Reichstag, von Papen asked for new elections. The result was more than 50% of the seats in favor of the extremists, and the Nazis had now the biggest party with 37% of the seats.
In order to please Hitler, von Papen lifted the ban on the SA. Furthermore, Hitler is offered a port in Papen’s new government, but he refuses to accept anything but the Chancellorship.
Thus, von Papen’s new government is left completely dependent upon Article 48. By November, the economic depression and political violence had plunged German society even deeper into chaos.
Now, von Schleicher asked the President to dismiss Papen. He had a plan.

Steps

Click Tools in the top menu then Options to open the Option-menu. In the left-hand part of the window, click Advanced and then Connection in the options that pop down under Advanced.
Check the box that says Display technical info during calls and call someone! Hover your mouse on the same part of the window where the Call and End Call buttons are and you should see a windows popping up telling you about what’s going on behind the scenes!

On the return from Zermatt I paid a visit to the Café de Paris in Geneva. As you may know they only serve one dish, the Entrecôte Café de Paris with the famous Café de Paris sauce and the French Fries. Let me just say this - it tasted amazing. Nothing short of amazing.

I do hope you enjoy watching the newly uploaded photos as well as further reading my blog!

Steps

#1
Open up your list of games inside Steam. Right click on Counter-Strike: Source, choose Properties and click the button that says Set launch options….

#2
Enter -console without spaces or anything else, to make the window look like this:

Press OK to close the window and save the setting. It will now open a console every time you launch the game.

#3
Open the game up and you should see a fairly big window opened inside the game, the console. You could stop here and just press Espace every time you’d like to type in a command, but unless that’s what you want there is an easier way of opening it.

#4
Inside the console, type bind <key> toggleconsole and replace <key> with whatever key you would like to bind the console to. I, for one, use bind F12 toggleconsole as I find that to be useful.

I hope you’ve found this short guide useful, this trick will work in all Half-Life 1 and Half-Life 2-based games as far as I am concerned. Good luck!

Perhaps this is a step in the direction where GMail in Google Apps finally will receive the ability to change and edit themes? That would be wonderful, currently the only thing Google mentions on this is that themes are coming soon!

The Troubled Start

At the end of the First World War different political extremist groups tried to take power. Amongst them were a Socialist republic under Kurt Eisner, the Spartakist Uprising (which leaders were brutally murdered (Kurt Liebkniecht and Rosa Luxemburg)), right-wing extremists under Wolfgang Kapp.
Out of the above, the army spared only the latter which in fact was crushed by the Weimar Republic itself…

The Weimar Republic and Adolf Hitler
Due to the early troubles, the Weimar Republic inherited a weakness already; the Germany army could perhaps not be trusted to defend the existence and power of the Republic.
In the cases of left-wing attempts to overthrow the state however, the army commander were keen to defend the government.
What in the end killed the right-wing attempt to overtake power was a general strike issued by President Ebert, which forced Wolfgang Kapp to leave his power after 3 days.
In 1993 in Munich, Adolf Hitler and the local right-wing party, the Nazional Sozialistiche Deutsche Arbeiter Party (NSDAP), tried to carry out a coup. The attempt was supposed to create a massive following as Hitler wanted to make a march to Berlin. It was however stopped by the Munich police who shot at the marchers, killing some.
Hitler fled but was arrested and sentenced to 6 years in prison in 1924.

More weakness

Weimar politicians were blamed for the 1918 armistice, nationalists claimed it was a “Stab in the Back” of the victorious Germany army.
These politicians were also blamed for signing the Treaty of Versailles.
The republic had an election system which was proportional. This was 100% democratic. There was however no threshold to how small the parties of the Reichstag could be (only needing about 60’000 votes).
Therefore several small parties sat in the Reichstag which in turn created political instability. On average, the republic changed government every six months, and it was difficult to create stable majority support for the government.
Instead, the governments were weak coalitions with the SPD (Sozialistiche Partei Deutschlands) depending on the Catholics or Liberals for support.
In 14 years, the Republic had 21 different governments, only eight of them had majority support.
The political parties of Germany had never under Bismarck or Wilhelm really carried the responsibility of governing the country. Thus, they had not understood the importance of compromise and pragmatism.
Some parties even went as far as organizing troops against each other. This added to the weakness of the parliamentary system under Weimar. According to the constitution, in case of the parliament failing, the president had the possibility of governing through emergency decree.

Important events

In 1921 the reparation payments for Germany to pay were fixed at £6’600 million. This was seen as a burden too heavy to bear, and France agreed that it could be payed in goods instead of currency.
But the Germans asked for postponement in 1921, 1922 and 1923… The French lost their patience as they needed the money not only for reparations but also to pay their debts to the USA. As a result, French troops invaded the Ruhr area in 1923 to physically make Germany pay.
Berlin ordered a strike and France sent over their own workers to run the factories. The invasion was called the Ruhr Crisis.
Economically, the Ruhr Crisis was a major disaster for Germany as they lost 95% of the level of production in the area.
Following this event, Germany also started over-printing money to pay the striking workers. It seems that Germany wanted to demonstrate to the world how unfair the reparations were.
Germany was struck by hyper-inflation, some big change in German policies had to happen!

The Second Crisis of Weimar

In 1929 a financial crisis started in the American countryside which by October hit the stock market at Wall Street. The Wall Street Crash caused US banks to urgently ask the debts to be paid.
For Germany this was disastrous. Investment funds for German industry dried up and factories laid off workers. Within two years, six million people lost their job. Consequences of this were that extreme parties gained voters causing an impossibility to create a majority government. This undermined the Republic and opened the door to the Nazis.

The Console feature

Pressing this button/tab takes you to a console with one line of code-input. What this thing enables you to is to run specific JavaScript commands to test and debug various features you may have. I have personally yet to find use for it, however I can definitely see large websites with a lot of JS making use of it!
I will further try this out, perhaps even inputting some jQuery code and seeing if something happens!

The Network tab

Let me start off by saying the following. The Network feature is awesome. As the picture depicts, it is all about load-time. What objects load? When does an object load? Where does it load? How long time does it take to load it? Is there anything I can do to improve this? The graph to the right of Transfer Time takes you back to the intuitive interface of iTunes and it’s graph of the layout of your iPod harddrive… All this is something I have found use for (and which I can’t see how anyone wouldn’t!) and which I will be using in the future!

What doesn’t work?

• SPTD (SCSI Pass Through Direct) does not seem to be installing properly. This prevents mounting software such as Daemon Tools from working.
• The sidebar in XFire (social gaming client) is empty, and the sound notification doesn’t work.
• Ventrilo (Voice-Over-IP software) seems to have problems with minimizing and opening other program while transmitting.

What works?

• Steam (games provider) seems to work flawlessly. I am testing the games within Steam at this moment.
• PowerISO (ISO-manager software) works well except from some issues with installation and registration.
• Google Chrome (browser) doesn’t register as the default browser. Opening it with administrator rights fixes the problem.
• WinRAR (archiving software) appears to work well, and extraction is actually fairly fast compared to XP and Vista.
• Spotify (music streaming service) works fine.
• uTorrent (torrent client) works well, giving just as fast speeds as in any other operating system.

Now you know, thanks to me. I’ll take the signing of autographs later!

This is the image we will come up with, in comparison with the old one.

Steps

#1
Change the color mode to “Lab Color” inside Image > Mode > Lab Color. This is the main start-off point and plays a key role in this tutorial.

#2
Select Curves in the Image > Adjustments > Curves. Using this tool we will now edit the colors to perfection!

#3
In the Channel drop-down, select a and b respectively and change the curves to something that resembles this.
a-curves
b-curves

#4
Revert back to RGB color mode, otherwise this can create problems when further editing the picture!

Good job, you’ve now gotten yourself a lot more color! Is it a bit too much? Fiddle around with the Saturation settings until you get what you like!
Did you like this or have any questions? Comment!

http://sydsvenskan.se/malmo/limhamn/article399614/Stromavbrott-i-Hyllie-och-Limhamn.html

Step

#1
Download, using a torrent client, this file and follow the instructions in the ReadMe. They should be fairly straightforward and only involve overwriting two or three files and editing an .ini file.

#2
Make sure Hamachi is the primary network on your computer. This is generally, whenever using Hamachi, a good idea! If you run XP this is how you do it (courtesy of Random Repository):

Reconfigure your XP’s Network connections to make it detect Hamachi first. Go to All Programs > Accessories > Communications > Network Connections. Go to the menu > Advanced > Advanced Settings. Put Hamachi on top of the list.

#3
For all players involved, please make sure you are opening the game with the extra -console startup parameter! Your parameters can be found in the .bat-file you’re using to start the game.

#4

• For the Hoster
  • In the console, type in sv_allow_lobby_connect_only 0 and ip (the IP your computer has from Hamachi). This is to open your computer up to connection attempts at the default ports by only other Hamachi users.
  • Now type map and select in the drop-down list which map you’d like to start. When all this is done, all you have to do is type net_start and you’re on your way!

• For the Players

  • Copy the hoster’s IP address and type connect (the IP address) inside the console!

Hopefully it should work as good for you as it worked for me! Let me know (by comment) if it worked or not!

The amp

The BANDIT 112 in all glory - it is truly a fantastic amp - but it has a pretty dull and compressed distortion. That particular type is suitable for some songs, but I want more!
So therefore I am, as stated, looking for distortion pedals in the range of -$60 USD. That might sound as very little, but as I am selling my old effect-box for about that amount.

I have mainly been looking at the Behringer HD300 Heavy Distortion pedal. It looks amazing, I just hope it sounds as amazing!

Head over to HLTV.org and check out the Dream-Hack coverage!

Sounds interesting, does it not?

The quote above, taken from a paper lying in front of me, describes the relationship between tourists and travellers. It describes the impact they cause on the country they visit as well as their general attitude towards another country, culture or other people. What exactly does it mean, though?

I believe it means tourists are unwilling to spend time and effort to try and adapt to the country they visit or to the cultural habits they are facing. Tourists see themselves as by-passers, trying to enforce the “watch but don’t touch”-idea at all times. They do not foresee how much impact their own actions do, meaning that they generally negatively impinge on the surrounding area and environment.
The quote describes travellers as people whom whole-heartedly attempt adapting to the culture and the ways of the country they visit. They are very aware of how to behave, what to not do and why, thus by also “leaving their culture behind” they take in a lot more knowledge and positive impressions from the visit.

It’s not the first time we’ve heard about the dangers of tourism, and it surely is not the last either. Often the environment has been victim of littering and other harmful behaviour, resulting in a lot of attention from the press and environmental organizations. Tourism can of course be a negative thing, and it probably mostly is, however it does have some bright sides to it. Tourism is to many countries the foremost source of money and fame, and in some rare cases big areas live solely on the profits from tourism. Although perhaps this looks like a symbiotic relationship, wealthy tourists visit the area and receive great service whilst the people obtain money to build schools and hospitals, it is absolutely reliant upon tourism. There is no “partnership” in this case, consequently if tourism dies then so do all the funds. Not vice-versa.

In comparison, travellers are tourists with an open mind and a conscious way of living. They do practically no damage to the environment, they interact in a helpful way with the people and their culture, they live on what is available more than trying to acquire what isn’t there.
Personally, I consider the main difference between tourism and travelling boils down to be the attitude. With an open mind and a positive attitude towards other cultures and ways of living I think humanity can come far, not only solving problems with tourism but also solving major environmental crises. I believe the cause for most problems on the Earth is attitudes and the way they affect how we act and think. Seeing the key role advertising plays in how we consume I assume it’s the best way to combat habits that affect the environment negatively, as consumption is closely linked to how much we influence our surroundings.

Which type of visitor I would rather be? That’s a difficult question! In most cases I do not wish to endeavour the lengthy process of becoming part of a culture nor do I wish to live by its rules even though I may deeply respect them. I am more of something in between; I avoid both affecting nature but also the affecting the culture, a moral I live by and which works for me. Admittedly none of us can be perfect, but I say let us overcome our differences and unite to save the Earth from what awaits it!

Protectionism is a political set of measures put in place to protect one’s countries companies and farmers from competition. It is also a general view on how trade with developing countries work and how it affects domestic economy. That’s a shortened and pretty basic explanation, but it is generally what protectionism is about.
Why would one want to limit export from other countries? Developing countries can cheaply produce food and commodities, therefore exporting it at a highly competitive price. This can prove lethal to domestic factories and farmers whom rely on being able to sell their products at a higher price.
Take the European farmers as an example. They are subsidized by the European Union (EU) to produce meat and dairy products. They overproduce, sell it to European countries at extreme prices, earning a lot of money. The surplus products are sold at dumped prices to the developing countries, again resulting in great profits to Europe.
Protectionism claims that if we introduced competition into the European market it would drain the farmers, eventually killing them all (not literarily speaking). So by setting up trade barriers (often in the form of tariffs) and limiting developing countries possibilities to export to us, we keep farming (and extreme pricing) alive.

This is what a lot of people are worried about when it comes to Barack Obama’s, as well as the Democrats, politics. I hope this short article gave you a slight insight into the matter, as it definitely gave me a lot to research about it!

You’ve most likely been a victim of a recent bug with some Call of Duty: World at War installations - no singleplayer/co-op profile is created upon installation. There is an easy fix for this, however!

Steps for Windows XP

Go into C:\Documents and Settings\YourProfile\Application Data (a hidden folder, you may need to type it manually into the address bar)\Activision\players\profiles.
Create a folder and name it whatever you want. Now create (still in \profiles) a .txt document and name it active.txt. Inside that document, type the exact name of the folder you just created.

Steps for Windows Vista

Go into C:\Users\YourProfile\Local Settings\Application Data (a hidden folder, you may need to type it manually into the address bar)\Activision\players\profiles.
Create a folder and name it whatever you want. Now create (still in \profiles) a .txt document and name it active.txt. Inside that document, type the exact name of the folder you just created.
Make sure you’re doing this with administrator rights, as otherwise Vista likes to be annoying and hide some files from you, essentially making you overwrite files that “do not” exist.

#1

Download an older version of Hamachi, preferably version 1.0.1.5. It can be found at FileHippo. Install it, and do not bother with the license notifications and all that. Make sure you have the new Hamachi executable in your firewall exception list (if you’ve had it there before, it should still be there)!
Connect to your regular network and meet up with your friends.

#2

Go to GameCopyWorld (GCW), select a mirror, search for world at war and find it, and in the list of patches and fixes, download the LAN fix #1. Use the downloaded patch to patch your current .exe file, and make sure it creates a backup of it (the option is a checkbox).

#3

Open up the newly patched .exe (not the [...]mp.exe file), and host a co-operative game. Please, make sure PunkBuster is turned OFF, both in your Options > Game Options and your Game Setup (inside the Lobby).
Tell your friends to search for the server and make sure they have Source set to LAN. Connect, play, and have fun!

Footnotes

If you can not get this working, try fiddling with your Firewall settings (maybe even try disabling it) and try playing with the in-game menu. Also the Hamachi settings might be of interest.
If nothing works, try letting the hoster host without the patched .exe and all the others connect with the patched .exe.

Also, according to a commenter, Ratza, it is important that the hoster runs his game as an Administrator by right-clicking on the shortcut and pressing Run as administrator!

Thanks for a great gaming experience, Activision!

It exceeded my expectations, although as a demo it was too short =) . I am longing for the real game, I must say!

Demography is the study of population changes. I will describe two general views, the Neo-Malthusian and the Modernization view, on the matter, starting with the former.

Thomas Malthus, a late demographer and economist, believed that food production would increase over time but not as fast as population growth.
In his studies, he assumed that love (sex) and food was necessary.
The Neo-Malthusians believe that population growth is the main problem, not only because it will outrun food production but also since it is a threat towards the environment and therefore the base of survival.
The remedy, according to the Neo-Malthusians, is to reduce population and population growth (family planning).

The Modernization theory says that the main problem is economic and social backwardness, thus making population growth occur. If there is economic development the population growth will decrease instantly.
The remedy is therefore is economic and social reforms.

Colonialism

What does history explain?
Colonisation took place in the 16th century and onwards. Trade posts were established along the coasts. Europe started a globalized trade (such as the Triangular Trade) which sent profits back to Europe.
This led to industrialization in Europe in the 19^th century. A dependency upon export in the Americas and in Africa was developed since the industrialization in the colonies was prohibited.
The slave trade in Africa created wars and destroyed the already existent local trade. Since slaves often were young and productive women and men a drainage of young workers was created.

Imperialism (1870 - 1914)

During the so called second phase exploatation was intensified, the interior of the continents were penetrated. European industry needed cheap raw materials such as copper, rubber, cotton and food.
Capital profits from industry in Europe needed new investment projects which were found in the colonies.

Introducing you to the SoL R38. It’s a highly efficient modern LED lamp with power-saving in mind as well as long life of operation, performance (the light itself is crisp and white) and heat emissions.
And best of all, it’s coolest on the block. Buy a few of these and you can turn any dull room into something well worth the stay, more or less! The outer shell, the housing, is made of anodized silver, looking a bit like a heatsink.

Thanks to NYTimes!

Working with Legacy Browsers and Reduced Functionality

I also had my own little say in the argument.

I don’t fully agree with you, after reading the whole post (a very interesting read, nonetheless). Giving legacy users less functionality just because they are using an old browser (which could be due to lower privileges) just does not sound right in my ears. If there was such a thing as “browser racism” I believe it would fall into that category.

Fixing IE-bugs is annoying, but in the end it does almost always pay off. The perfect site is a site where you (as a developer) avoid building two different sites (one legacy and one regular). The perfect site is a site where all features are available to all users, regardless of browser or operating system.

In my opinion, of course =) !

After some more argumenting:

I think the difference between “less features for old browsers” and “more features for newer browsers” is very much the same thing. It all narrows down to not giving older browsers better goods because of either laziness or lack of time. Most often, also, removing the bells and whistles is the same as removing a good reason to like a certain site.

I just want to say that I would rather develop a site thoroughly and add features that risk bugging out in a step-by-step manner, making sure everything works in the end. It is a lot of work, but it is rewarding!

Agreed, but when developing smart features for say, an e-shop website, and not sharing these with IE users will leave them frustrated.

How to clean your G15 keyboard easily and safely!

Have a look at these two pictures: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Win7paint.png and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Win7wordpad.png.

Isn’t that just the most annoying thing you’ve ever seen? Microsoft has decided to use the same horrible interface and GUI from Office 2007 inside Paint and Wordpad. Seeing who these two rather useless but oldschool programs are being raped by Microsoft’s design architects is outright sad! Paint has looked the same way since the birth of Windows 95 and so has Wordpad.

The Office 2007-look they’re about to get will decrease efficiency, usability (finding features is a pain), and overall popularity. Paint will lose it’s “oldschool”-status and Wordpad… Well Wordpad will still be the useless replacement for Word, but it won’t be just as cool!

I can imagine people already now taking copies of their mspaint.exe‘s to be sure to not lose them. I know I am, at least!

What is it about this that intrigues me? The mystery, the pictures, the descriptions, the theories… Everything!
Just like I love reading about things like the Bermuda Triangle and the “Silverpilen”, I loved reading about this rather unusual happening. The fact that the meteorite (or asteroid) knocked a good 2,150 square kilometres (830 square miles) of trees down and that the power of the impact measured to be a thousand times that of the Hiroshima bomb, adds to the immensity of the thing that came towards earth at a speed of 10-12km/s one morning.

I’ve gathered some links you might find useful, if you’re even half as interested as I am (and if you’re still reading).

• Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunguska_event http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonid_Kulik
• William K. Hartmann - http://www.psi.edu/projects/siberia/siberia.html

First thing you should try is to use the built-in drivers available on the modem itself. See, the little egg works like both a storage device and a modem, and on the storage part are included drivers for both Windows and Mac.
As a Mac user, you will only see the Mac drivers, and as a Windows user it’s vice versa, so you do not have to worry about choosing the wrong drivers. Open Finder and click on the newly appeared device in the left-hand bar, and proceed by double-clicking the Mobile Connect.app. However, the installer is very buggy and for some it just does not work.

If all goes well and you do manage to install it, just run the application and use the internet! If you’re unlucky, it will, as I mentioned, briefly open and then close itself. You need to get a driver from the Huawei homepage. Fortunately I’ve fetched up the drivers for you (it was kind of hard to find one’s way around, I can tell you that), you can directly download the driver from over here.

The file being downloaded on your harddrive is called just plain “E220” without any extension. You won’t be able to do much with it in it’s current state, so to proceed you must rename it to “E220.dmg”. Now just double-click it, let it mount and run the installer - it should take you through the installation process and configure everything for you!

Congratulations on getting fairly good 3G internet anywhere in the world (depending on coverage, of course)!

Was Germany guilty?
The growth of Germany’s industry led to the growth of the scialist movement. Wilhelm’s “Weltpolitik” seems to have been motivated by a desire to rally the growing number of industrial workers behind the emperor. This in order for them not to support the SPD (Sozialistische Partei Deutschlands) and the Trade Union.
All this can be seen as a way to try to neutralize the socialist threat to the domination position that the Junkers held in German politics.
According to the Fischer Thesis, this domestic motive only continues into war. Germany wanted a war also a way for Wilhelm and the Junkers to stay in control. Thus the war is only an extension of the Weltpolitik.

Was France guilty?
France was the architect behind the encirclement of Germany using the alliance with Russia, and she would never accept the loss of Alsace-Lorraine. By 1914, president Poincarré changed attitude towards Russia. All of a sudden, Paris would now support the Tsar instead of stopping him when he wanted to act against the Austrians.

Was Russia guilty?
The Tsar had domestic problems; a growing wave of strikes and protests against his government would have motivated him to have the population focus on a foreign foe. In essence the Tsar wanted to go to war in order to rally the people behind him.
The Russians mobilization plan caused German reactions, and the support Russia gave to Serbia made the bold enough not to fully accept Austria’s ultimatum.

Was Austria-Hungary guilty?
Austria-Hungary’s ultimatum was most likely designed to create a war with Serbia. Because of the blank cheque Germany had given her, she went ahead and attacked Serbia regardless of the consequences.
She clearly wanted a war, as her position as a Great Power was weakening.

Was Serbia guilty?
Serbia was proud, bold and consciously provoked Austria-Hungary with her attacks.

What is all this about?

XFire introduced Live Video back a few months ago. Live Video is a tool for gamers to broadcast what they see to the masses. It’s quick and easy, requires only a few configuration steps and the XFire client itself. You can only broadcast a current game in progress (i.e. you can’t (regularly) broadcast anything else but a full-screen DirectX game), and only some games are supported.
Now what I’ve managed to find out is how to broadcast pretty much any video player (though I’ve only tested it on a certain player it should theoretically work in any environment) by doing some fairly straight-forward editing of files. Enough talking, let’s get to the actual guide.

Steps

#1
Download Media Player Classic from here (direct SF link). Extract the file (mplayerc.exe) to a location of your choice (I put mine in C:\Program Files\MPC) and open it. You will be greeted with an empty window. Click on View and then Options. In the left-hand menu navigate to Output, and choose the following settings:

Press OK, close the program and remember the path to where you extracted it.

#2
Close XFire and then navigate to the folder where it XFire is located (usually C:\Program Files\Xfire) and open the file xfire_games.ini in Notepad or any other text-editor (no, I’m not saying you can use Word). Scroll down to the bottom and paste this a few lines under the last row:

[9999]
LongName=MPC
ShortName=mpcplayer
LauncherDirKey=C:\Program Files\MPC
LauncherExe=mplayerc.exe
Launch=%UA_LAUNCHER_EXE_PATH% %UA_LAUNCHER_EXTRA_ARGS% %UA_LAUNCHER_NETWORK_ARGS%
InGameRenderer=D3D9
;InGameFlags=USE_PRESENT|ENABLE_MOUSE|USE_DINPUT_MOUSE

Change the path after LauncherDirKey= to wherever you extracted Media Player Classic. Otherwise make sure everything else is as it looks.

#3
Open XFire again, let it log-in and then press Tools and then Options. In the top bar select Games and let it detect any newly installed games. Double-click Not Installed, scroll down and click on MPC (the games are in alphabetical order). Select Manually Setup and Browse to the location of where you extracted Media Player Classic (same path as in the xfire_games.ini file, yes I know) and press OK.

Now go Tools again, this time hovering over Launch and then clicking MPC. When it’s been launched, select File and Open File, browse to the file you want to open, press OK and press ScrollLock + B to start the broadcast! If nothing happens, make sure you’ve enable Live Broadcast (Options, Broadcast (ALPHA), check Enable Broadcast).

Conclusion

As far as I know, there are no legal implications as to the modifying of core files, and it’s really nothing that can destroy your installation of XFire (if it does, just re-install).
I am aware of the fact that it doesn’t display the broadcast in the XFire status window. The solution to this is for the viewers to go to http://www.xfire.com/live_video/username directly.

Have fun, and let me know how it goes!

Soon you will be able to comment again, by contacting me =) !

An Austrian envoy, Count Hoyos, brings a letter from Franz Joseph to Kaiser Wilhelm. The letter says that Austria-Hungary will crush Serbia militarily on the condition that she would receive German support.
Wilhelm virtually gives Austria a blank cheque, in essence support for whatever actions they wish to take. Berlin thought that this would be just another small Balkan War.
On the 23rd of July, Vienna hands over a nearly impossible ultimatum to Serbia. On the 25th, Russia mobilizes against Austria-Hungary whilst Grey, the British Foreign Minister, desperately tries to get a conference to be held.
His efforts are rejected by Austria-Hungary and Germany.

Historians disagree about the general causes for war, but one can clearly say that all parties more or less wanted war at the time.

The Schlieffen Plan

The German Schlieffen Plan (named after Count Alfred von Schlieffen), drawn up in the 1890’s, said that Germany could defeat France and then later defeat Russia, thereby fighting two one-front wars.
It basically said that Germany could win wars against both France and Russia by first moving through Belgium, capturing Paris and then returning to the Russian border.
The follow description is a key part in Frederick Taylor’s work and theory, “War by Time-Table”, which says that the planning was very important for the outbreak of the WWI.
On the 28th of June Russia was going to mobilize her army. The Tsar’s first order was for a full mobilization (along both the Austrian-Hungarian and German border).
Soon after the first order however, the Tsar tried changing the order to only invoke a partial mobilization, towards Austria. This was to avoid provoking Germany.
The Tsar was adviced by his staff not to call off the complete mobilization, for it would then render Russia defenseless against a German attack.
The elaborate mobilization plan involving hundreds of thousand men had to be followed once it was put in motion, or else an irreversible disruption of troop transport would follow.

On the 25th of June Russia started to mobilize along the German frontier. Normally this would only be seen as a “flexing of muscles”, a political way of displaying one’s power.
But for Germany, who needed to quickly defeat France, this essentially meant an immediate mobilization and movement through Belgium. She had to act.

Klagshamn Hamn #1 from Douglas S on Vimeo.

Klagshamn Hamn #2 from Douglas S on Vimeo.

Klagshamn Hamn #3 from Douglas S on Vimeo.

Did some more recording during the weekend, this time in Blekinge.

Various shots of Blekinge from Douglas S on Vimeo.

1908

Russia and Serbia were forced to accept the annexation of Bosnia as Kaiser Wilhelm II sent the Tsar Nicholas II: “If you get involved we will support Austria-Hungary”.
Serbia was embittered and from now on slav and serb terrorism would become an increasing problem for the Austrians.

1911

In 1911 Italy attacks Tripoli in Libya and manages to push the Ottomans away. This inspires Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria and Greece to form the Balkan League.

1912 and the First and Second Balkan Wars

In 1912 Turkey’s European territories are attacked by the said Balkan League on both north and south flanks and are swiftly defeated.
The four states of the League acted independently of the instructions from the Great Powers (“do not start a war!”).
Even though Turkey was driven out of Europe, the situation in the Balkans was not stabilized, and the area remained the “powder keg of Europe”.
One result of the war seemed to be that Serbia would get a coastline on the Adriatic Sea. However, a conference with the Great Powers was called, where Austria-Hungary’s and Italy’s urge to stop Serb access was supported by Great Britain, France and Germany.
So, Serbia had to evacuate and instead the new state of Albania was created. The Serbs were bitter and decided to bring up an old disagreement with Bulgaria over the division of Macedonia. As a result of this quarrel Bulgaria attacked Serbia, but was easily defeated when Serbia was joined by Greece, Romania and Turkey (the Second Balkan War).
After this attack Serbia, with a boosted self-confidence, yet again tries to take Albania but is forced to evacuate because of a subsequent conference where Austria insists upon it.
Serbia has to bitterly give in and leave Albania.

Conclusion

During these two wars, tensions between the big powers rose. Especially between Russia, who was supporting Serbia, and Germany, supporter of Austria-Hungary.
Russia was unable to support Serbia’s party of the wars due to Kaiser Wilhelm threatening the Tsar Nicholas II and at the same time giving Austria-Hungary full diplomatic support.

First of all, visit the FragBase homepage and download the Non Steam CS 1.6 GAME and the Non Steam CS 1.6 PATCH. After downloading and extracting, run the .exe file, running the GAME first and then the PATCH. During the installation you might be prompted with Retry, Cancel or Ignore messages, make sure you just ignore them. Also, if you’re running a non-English version of your OS some text might be shown as question marks.

After installing it and running for the first time you might want to change options such as your name and your spray-tag. When you’re ready to play, you’ve got a job ahead of you - finding servers. Naturally you could try clicking Find Server and try joining, however you will not be able to play since you will be kicked for an Invalid CD-key. Finding non-Steam dedicated servers can be a hassle, but Google is there for you, as well as the FragBase homepage. The latter has three dedicated servers running (208.122.49.51:27015, 208.122.49.24:27015 and 208.122.52.254:27015) which you are free to connect to and have fun with.

Remember, this is most likely classed as illegal, and all of this is done at your own risk! Other than that, there’s not much more for me to say. Good luck and have fun!

The foreign ministers of Russia and Austria-Hungary, Alexander Izvolsky respectively Alois Lexa von Aehrenthal, negotiated in secrecy an agreement: Russia would accept an Austrian annexation of Bosnia and Austria would support Russia’s desire to get free access through the Dardanelles. The would be done at an international conference at a later date (not set at the time).
However, before Great Britain and France gave their approval for such a conference, the Austrians went ahead and proclaimed their annexation of Bosnia. This caused an outrage in St. Petersburg, in Belgrade and in other slav quarters. Meanwhile it seemed unlikely that London or Paris would accept a conference to facilitate Russia’s access to the Mediterranean…

To add other email accounts to your Gmail account (i.e. pairing them together) is easy and painless and can improve your efficiency by loads. Imagine having all your emails right in your Gmail inbox, ready to be read and archived inside your other around 8GB’s of space! This is all possible and pretty easy to set up. Let’s do this!

Log-in to your GMail account and have the credentials for your other accounts ready to be typed. Click on Settings at the top of the screen and choose the Accounts tab. Click on Add another mail account and follow the on-screen instructions, and you’ll have the account paired up with Gmail in no time! To later change the settings you do not need to re-add the account, you only need to press edit info on the right-hand side of the account-name and change whatever you need to change.

Remember, if you want to move your emails from the other account when receiving them, leave the Leave a copy of retrieved message on the server checkbox unchecked. If you wish to leave a copy of the mails you’re receiving then tick the box.

Labels, for those of you who do not know, is like putting mail into different folders or categories without moving them into other folders (i.e. keeping them in the Inbox). If you download mail from an external mail account, for example, you can choose to have it labeled automatically. It will then receive the label corresponding to the email address of the mail account you are downloading from.

One can also, of course, create own labels and apply them to different mail. This can be achieved by going into Settings and choosing Labels and pressing Create. But the main question here is how to filter by labels and how to search them! Labels are useless if you can’t actually filter the mail to exclusively show them!

The key lies, as so many other times, in the Gmail searchbar. This Google-powered wonderful little input-bar of rejoice let’s you do numerous things inside Gmail relating to filtering and searching. As with the regular Google searchbar you can apply certain rules to the search by adding parameters infront of the query such as define: and related: .

Solution
To search for (and essentially filter out) certain labels you only need to add label: in the searchbar and type parts of the, or the whole, name of the label you’re looking for. Gmail quickly and easily grabs all mail with the corresponding label(s) and displays it in a green box. One can also open an email with the label one’s looking for and just click the label itself. Either way labels are a very handy way of organizing mail.

It includes a trade and request section, where you can get your lighter sold or just request that very special lighters you’ve been searching for for ages.
In the show-off section you can show the world you’re very own lighter(s) (for you collectors there is a collectors area) and get them rated and commented on.
Use the troubleshooting section to get fast and qualified help with your lighter, there aren’t any problems that can’t be solved!

The big goodie here is the ability to upload images of your lighters and collections to the Gallery. You get a few MB’s freely for you to use for attachments in posts and uploads to the Gallery, isn’t that just awesome?

Zippo Lighters Community board is built on the latest bulletin-technology from Invision with SEO-friendly URLs and handy javascript and AJAX features, which makes it one of the most modern and easily useable places to discuss lighters. Give it a try today and be one of the first members of this potentially popular community!

Register at the community forum today and reap the many benefits you get access to!

Liberalism
Liberalism appeared in the late 18th century, paving the way to an industrial society during the said period by allowing new groups to gain political power. It appealed to the middle class in the growing cities.
It’s main philosophers were Locke, Smith and Voltaire.
Liberalism believes in mankind; you are rational, you are capable, you can make sensible decisions about your own life, you are developable. Since you are able to make sensible decisions, your property and income should not be stolen or taken over by the state.
You should also have various freedoms such as freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom from coercion, economic freedom, et cetera.
Mainly this means the state can not interfere in your affairs, and in extreme liberal cases the state should not be allowed to take taxes, as this is regarded as stealing from your property.
Liberalism believes in democracy without a king where one man gets one vote and the power is focused around the parliament.

Conservatism
Conservatism appeared after the French Revolution, when the philosopher Burke wrote a book on the subject, criticizing the rapid changes to society which the said revolution had brought.
This ideology spread, mostly appealing to the aristocracy and clergy.
Conservatism believes society should undergo development, but in a very slow pace. They like to compare society with a human body, growing all the time but very slowly. A revolution could mean chopping an arm off, and it should therefore be avoided.
It also makes use of hierarchy whenever possible. God is on the top, followed by the king, the noble, et cetera. In the family this hierarchy is also applied thus making the father the one in charge.
Conservatism believes that the way to maintain stability in society is by avoiding so-called “social mobility”, the ability to move between groups in society (e.g. earning enough money to move a class up from farmers).

Socialism
The acting people behind Socialism were Karl Marx, Engels and Vladimir Lenin (I had no idea until recently his first name was Vladimir).
Socialism was based on several different points, one being “historical materialism”, i.e. Karl Marx’s interpretation of history. He wrote several books about Socialism which still are a foundation for modern Socialism.
He pictured society as an evolving entity with four different stages. Slave society, Feudalism, Capitalism, and lastly Communism. He believed all societies would eventually evolve into Communism, as it was the last stage in the evolution.
Marx description of the different stages included the well-known so-called “class struggles”, i.e. the struggle between the poor and the rich.
During the slave society the struggled lied between the slave-owners and the slaves themselves.
Feudalism brought struggles between the clergy and aristocracy and the peasants. The landlords owned the land and the peasants farmed it in exchange for protection from the lords.
According to Marx, Capitalism brings on struggles between the employers and the employees. Marx’s image of Communism was a struggle-less society.
To achieve communism Marx believed that society had to, inevitably, go through a bloody revolution with certain period of dictatorship following. The last few remains of capitalism had to be cleaned out, and for that society needed a firm hand, i.e. a dictator.

Nationalism
Nationalism is a vague concept, not really an ideology but still a host of ideas that play important roles in modern politics. As I noted in the post Basic Political Concepts, “a nation is a group of people that share common characteristics of culture, language and historical experience”. Hence, Nationalism is about the love for ones country and the common identity the inhabitants share.
Generally there are two kinds of nationalism, citizenship nationalism and ethno-nationalism. Citizenship nationalism emphasizes kinship and solidarity towards the own state. It derives from the French revolution and the enlightenment.
Ethno-nationalism emphasizes kinship and solidarity towards the people. The objective is to have one state with one nation. It derives from the German romanticism.
To summarize this two-sided coin one can say that Nationalism is a gnome keeping states together, but also a seed of war.

There will be more to come!

I tried installing it by copying down the image onto an iPod and using it as a boot device, but hopelessly. The Mac wouldn’t recognize it as bootable, therefore eliminating all chances of ever booting from it (obviously).

However, I still knew I could use Dual Layer DVD’s (I just wanted to avoid mal-burning one of them and having to replace it), and that’s what I did. I burned the image onto one of the 25 duallayered DVD’s I was forced to buy and let it boot up.

The installation screen was familiar to me (as I’ve tried installing Leopard on PC’s several times) and I jumped through a dozen or so screens and finally started installing.
The install itself took perhaps an hour or so, and was fairly painless.

Now, before I go on writing about how Leopard behaves I must gather more intel, do more research and prepare myself. So, until then, stay tuned!

Conclusion

After testing this out I came to the conclusion that setting categories is tough and that adding custom keywords might be difficult. I will continue using the normal web-based publishing until something better comes my way!

A Nation
A nation is a human group sharing common characteristics of culture, language, historical experiences etc.
There are about 200 states whilst there are about 2000 nations.

A Centralized State
This name is used when talking about states which are governed from the capital. Most states are centralized.

A Federal State (a union)
When power has been decentralized from the capital to different provinces the state has become federal. Examples include the USA.

A Government
The ruling party of a country including a set of institutions (ruling the country).
The government has power over the military and police, amongst other things.

A Parliament
This is the lawmaking body of a state.

The Head of Government
Also known as the prime minister, bundeskansler or statsminister (in German resp. Swedish).

The Head of State
The head of state can be a king or a president. Often this post only has a symbolic value, becoming more powerful during times of war.

A Constitution
A constitution is a set of fundamental laws about how to rule a country and fundamental laws about important values in society, e.g. human rights and freedom of speech.

Democracy

• Direct democracy: everyone is allowed to vote. Referendums are held.
• Indirect democracy: when representatives (to a parliament) are elected to make decisions.

• The emergence of Germany (unified in 1871) as a Great Power on the continent.
• The gradual weakening of the Ottoman Empire, which started when Greece became independent in 1830 and Serbia, Romania and Bulgaria in 1878. The term the sick man of Europe for the Ottoman Empire derived from this decay.

Next article in the series: Origins of WWI.

Here are some previews of what you’re about to see. The movie was recorded with WeGame, intro:ed in After Effects and edited + rendered in Sony Vegas.

• Sony Vegas
• Adobe Premiere
• Adobe After Effects (this is mainly used for intros)

• WeGame
• XFire
• Fraps

When I first saw these new captchas, a year ago or so, I had no idea what the point of them was. But, as time went by, my interest of this thing grew, and today I started reading up on what it did.

A quote from the reCAPTCHA site:

To archive human knowledge and to make information more accessible to the world, multiple projects are currently digitizing physical books that were written before the computer age. The book pages are being photographically scanned, and then transformed into text using “Optical Character Recognition” (OCR). The transformation into text is useful because scanning a book produces images, which are difficult to store on small devices, expensive to download, and cannot be searched. The problem is that OCR is not perfect.
reCAPTCHA improves the process of digitizing books by sending words that cannot be read by computers to the Web in the form of CAPTCHAs for humans to decipher. More specifically, each word that cannot be read correctly by OCR is placed on an image and used as a CAPTCHA. This is possible because most OCR programs alert you when a word cannot be read correctly.

You might be wondering how reCAPTCHA can know if you’re spelling the word right or wrong? It assumes that if you spell the first word right, you’re spelling the next word correct as well. Does it work? Yes, I think it does, and therefore I have added it to the comment- and contactform. Have fun digitalizing books!

When the weather is windy enough I do windsurfing, and when it’s calm I do waterskiing. The latter is something I do at very rare occasions, but something I am enthusiastic about.
During very calm period it feels like plowing through a big piece of butter with the skis, just an unbelievable feeling to say the least.
Those of you who have me as a Facebook friend know where to look for pictures, I might upload some here as well.

Do you do any watersports? Comment!

I’ve only yet started on it, and I have still a dozen or so features left to code, but it’s starting to take shape very nicely.
I’ll keep you posted on the progress!

The picture I used to show it just does not bring out the true beauty of it. I’ll see if I can get a better preview of it in a near future.

What are your thoughts?

The laptop itself is of the brand Lenovo and is called 3000 N200. It has an old dual-core processor (1.46GhZ per core?) and comes with two sticks of 512MB SO-DIMM DDR2 PC5300 RAM.
As I have been running Vista on it for a long time now, I felt that it absolutely needed a boost in the memory as Vista takes incredible amounts of memory while idling. So I took a bike-ride to a nearby computer store and bought myself a stick of the same specifications but with 2GB of memory.

I have never touched the insides of a laptop, neither have I ever needed to. After taking a quick look at the three different panels underneath, I immediately saw a little imprint of a chip beside the screw on one of them.
That must be the RAM, I thought, and after unscrewing 1 (one) screw I was ready to open the panel and have a look. So far so good, the sight of two sticks (one being pushed forward for viewing purposes) met my eyes and I was pleased.

This is too easy, I thought to myself. There’s gotta be some catch to it all. But there really was not. After releasing the overlying stick from it’s metal holders it flipped up at about 45° and was easy to remove.
The “art of inserting the stick of RAM” was basically just inserting it into the pins and applying pressure to the top, eventually clipping it back into the metal holders on the sides.

That was all I had to do and after putting the panel back in place I now enjoy 2,5GB’s of memory!

Basically, XML (Extensive Markup Language) is a code-language designed to be as easy as possible to read and interpret, for both browsers and search-engine spiders. It uses easy to read tags which, unlike HTML, can be named after anything. <quiz>, <game>, <lol>, etc.
XML files are known to have a very clean structure and they are optimal to use when interacting with search-engines, as they only look at your code and nothing else.

A sitemap is an one-page XML directory consisting of all the various pages within a site. Within each <url> tag is information about the URL of the page, the last modified date, the priority and a host of other things.
How does this help the search engine, then? If you’re coding your homepage in fancy AJAX Javascript, or in other ways have links to pages that aren’t easy for the spider to find, a sitemap is an easy way of getting those pages indexed as well.

Now, writing a sitemap yourself can be a pain, especially if you have hundreds of pages to keep track of. Nowadays, most CMS’s (Content Management Systems) have sitemap-generation included in some form, whether it’s built in or can be added through a modification. If you’re using your own CMS, or you’re manually coding every page by itself you might want to consider checking out Sitemap-generators (search on Google for that). Information on how a sitemap is supposed to look can be found here.

I hope you’ve gotten a clearer picture of what a sitemap is. If you have any more questions feel free to either comment here or contact me.

Google Maps has been around for a long time now. It’s just like Google Earth only it has slightly less features and is browser-based. It’s the good old zoom-in-on-any-place concept which so many other companies have taken over.
A few months ago, however, Google launched their new eye-candy - the Streetview. This is basically a vast database of imagery taken from a car driving around the States, with pictures from nearly every big city and road.
When in the Streetview-view you can pan the camera around 360° as well as zoom in on the current view. Whenever you want to go down/up the street you just click on the conveniently placed markers on either side of the screen.

You should have a go at it, trust me you will be pleased!

I wish I had one of those, but according to Top Gear every engine is built by hand and that drives the price up sky-high =( .