Zixar

No disrespect, but whenever the reasons for some problem come down to a conspiracy theory, you might as well file it away with the rest of them. Herbal medicine is yet another case of 10% meat, 90% breadcrumbs in the meatball. For every penicillin, pseudoephedrine, or aspirin, there's ten dubious superweeds. Of course, if the government weren't colluding with the UFOs to combat the Illuminati's manipulations of the AMA and the suppression of the 200-mpg carburetor, we'd know the Truth™. Why else do the drug companies keep paying for doctors to attend those seminars in Bermuda? Gotta keep the Bermuda Triangle filled with souls from time to time to appease the Evil-Powers-That-Be. Are the medical companies the victims here? Hell, no! But are the chemists and doctors who are trying to develop these new drugs in the laboratory sitting around twiddling their mustaches during the coffee breaks, plotting how to crush the herbalists? Hardly. Can a chiropractor help your back pain? Yep. Can adjusting your spine cure the flu? No, regardless of the AMA's conspiracy against them, too. One more thing. If the herbal way is really Nature's Plan, what are you supposed to do if the one plant that will cure your disease grows 3,000 miles away? What about all the Chinese herbalists who also prescribe endangered animal parts for impotence? Anyone really want to take Powdered Rhino Horn for erectile dysfunction? These herbal cures do bear looking into, but I sure wouldn't want to bet my life on a bunch of anecdotes.

Does WinMX have the ability to download a file from multiple users yet? This is the only reason I use KaZaA Lite actually. I like having the ability to be able to speed things up by getting a piece from many different people. Yes, WinMX does the multipoint downloading now.

WinMX is also good, but I agree with P-Mosh: stay away from KaZaA and go only with KaZaA Lite. Kazaa puts spyware on your PC! (Kazaa Lite was hacked to remove the spyware...)

Yes, a lot of times, the command is AWDFLASH from the A: prompt. There may be an easier way to make a boot floppy, though. Put a blank floppy in the A: drive, go into Windows Explorer, and click with the right mouse button on the A: drive. Pick "Format" off the menu and see if there is an option to make a "system disk" or transfer the system files to the disk--that makes it bootable when it completes the format. There's even a way to make a DOS boot disk for an old application by going through the DOS prompt in a window, but I've forgotten how to do it. Something with the Compatibility Properties that lets you create a DOS boot disk for a program that won't run otherwise. If I recall it, I'll let you know.

Well, they are magically delicious, after all...

Plus, children today wouldn't know wormwood from asphodel even if either of them were made into a sugary breakfast cereal.

And if you rearrange the letters of the female lead, Hermione Granger, you get GREEN HEROIN GRAM.

Well, if witchcraft really worked like it does in the HP movies, I'd be more concerned, but a bit of mangled pseudo-Latin and waving a stick doesn't really qualify as demonology in my book. I think the positive qualities are that they don't gloss over the good/evil right/wrong question with a bunch of politically-correct, can't-we-all-get-along, it's-all-good resolutions consisting of excusing the wrong with hugs, happy thoughts, and "tolerance". Evil isn't just an acceptable alternative lifestyle in Harry's world. I'm taking my grandkids to see HP2 again when they come up next weekend.

There has been speculation that Christopher Lee may get the part of Dumbledore in HP3. That would be quite a coup--major roles in the three biggest film franchises of the past 25 years, Dumbledore, Saruman in LOTR, and Count Dooku in Star Wars 2&3. (p.s. Speaking of Lord of the Rings, the new extended edition DVD is fantastic! The extra half hour fills in some gaps in the backstory, and it's all seamless. Fortunately, the booklet shows which scenes were added or extended so you can see all the little differences. Highest recommendation!)

Hope: Oh, definitely. Quite superior to the first one. Might have used a bit more humor, though. Lucius Malfoy was played by the same actor who played Mel Gibson's nemesis in The Patriot, Jason Isaacs. And Kenneth Branagh is superb in everything he does. (Which makes Wild, Wild West even more inexplicable...) You'll have to go see it again, though. Unless you sat through to the end of the credits, you didn't get to see Lockhart's final disposition. (It's worth it.)

Cindy, if you don't have a happy birthday, the random executions will continue until morale improves... Go! Have a happy birthday NOW! What are you waiting for??? [boot] Have a great one! (swat!) Zix

Network interface cards themselves can be had for $5-$10 on sale at BestBuy or CompUSA.

John: Some of the cable and DSL modems are USB instead of Ethernet, so they require drivers. Motherboard manufacturers rarely ship a bug-free BIOS, so updating it at every opportunity is a good thing, and it's hardly rocket science. Krys: Reinstalling IE 6 over the newer version shouldn't give you any problems. The intermittent reboots may be from your power supply, if it isn't rated for high enough wattage, or it's got a fault that opens when it heats up. Check with CyberPower, they can probably help you.

Krys: IG is incorrect. A BIOS update is a fairly trivial task that doesn't even require opening the computer. You absolutely have to have your motherboard's maker and model number though, that's crucial. Each BIOS is specifically tailored to a particular motherboard, and you cannot use any BIOS but one intended for your machine. Typically, you go to the motherboard maker's website, look up the model number, and any BIOS updates will be listed there. You download the latest version, unZip it, print out the instructions, copy the files to a boot floppy, reboot with it in the A: drive, and follow the instructions. Takes 5 minutes or less.

I can personally verify that Accenture Consultant entry, being one myself. If we could generate a penny of income for every hollow buzzword inserted into a simple press release or corporate memo, Bill Gates would look like he was next in line for food stamps. Sheesh.

Thank you so much, everyone! It was a quiet day, spent with family and friends. But then the weather radio kept going off every half hour after midnight with all the tornado warnings, so I'm completely worn out today! Thanks again, and God bless you all! Zix

Well, I think the swelling has subsided now! Thank you all so much for all the nice greetings! I got a new computer chair and some books I've been wanting, plus I got to watch the fantastic Falcons-Steelers game with friends and family. A most enjoyable, if understated, birthday. Thanks again! God bless! Zixar

A reporter runs across a story about a secret videotape which, if you view it, you will die in seven days. Of course, being the typical reporter, she watches it. Immediately after the final image on the tape, her phone rings, and a mysterious voice says "Seven days..." She's still not convinced, although her research turns up that every one of the high school kids who watched it did die, precisely seven days later, to the hour. Gradually, she becomes more and more fearful as the time winds down, until she walks in too late to keep her young son from watching it. Now she becomes more and more frantic as she tries desperately to unravel the horror before her seven days expire... This was the flat-out creepiest movie I've seen in quite a while, easily stomping "Blair Witch Project" flat. Director Gore Verbinski doesn't give in to the Hollywood cliche' of cheap scares/"fake-boo" shots, (like the mysterious noise only being a cat in the kitchen) he instead creates dread subliminally, using inappropriate camera shots to keep tensions high. An example: Normally, when you want to have an actress convey great fear, you do a tight close-up on her face, or maybe even just her eyes. However, if you have the same situation, but put the actress off to one side of a medium shot, and show this space behind her that she obviously can't see, then linger on it for a few seconds, the impression is created that something is going to come up behind her and get her. Remember the scene in Aliens when the little girl is standing in the water while Sigourney Weaver and Michael Biehn try to cut through the floor with a blowtorch? Then, just as they do, the camera jumps back to the same shot of the girl, but now an Alien comes up from the water and grabs her? You get the idea. Verbinski uses shots like these all through the film, but (cleverly) doesn't pay off on all of them. You keep trying to predict when the stereotypical "boo" shot is going to happen, just like it always does in all the zillions of horror movies you've seen before, but it's not predictable. There's no "Okay, it's too early in the movie for this to be the real villain, so it's a fake...[insert cat jumping off cabinet]See? Told you it wasn't him. Yawn." Now, there is at least one point in the movie where you'll say "Yawn, Zix was wrong, I saw that coming a mile away..." All I can say is, "you didn't see what you thought you did--keep watching..." My wife was physically shaking through the ending, and there must have been twenty teenage girls shrieking at the true-boo scenes. For only a PG-13 movie, it's surprisingly effective. Naturally, then, it's not an American original. It's a remake of the 1998 Japanese film Ringu. Expect to see the Americanized versions of Ringu 2 and the prequel Ringu Zero over the next couple of years. (Although one of the scenes from Ringu 2 was used in this remake of the first in order to explain a little of the backstory...) If you enjoy a good scare, but not cheap scares, this is one you'll want to see. If you're the type who has nightmares easily, avoid this one at all costs. I think it's an absolute must-see for film students. Before you die, you post on GreaseSpot...

John: Telescopes magnify very small sections of the sky, so they're useless for watching meteors as they shoot all the way across. Oh, but the first time you see Saturn through one... You'll never forget it. Here's a smaller, portable scope, the Meade ETX-90 Maksutov-Cassegrain. You can also get the $99 eyepiece deal with it and the excellent UHTC coatings. http://www.optcorp.com/cart/ProductDetail....PR_ProductID=40 I have this one too. It's nicely portable(aircraft carry-on size), and with the Autostar controller, it's computer-controllable. Superb optics, and you can set it up on a car hood out in the boonies when the clouds finally run away. It's a fantastic hobby that can be enjoyed on any budget, from naked-eye to spending $600 on a single eyepiece! (Mmmmm...31mm Nagler...sigh!) Start with the two major magazines: Sky and Telescope and Astronomy. Then look up your local astronomy club and go out to a star party. They love newbies, since it gives them a chance to talk about all their cool stuff! Once you know the stars, you'll always know where you are...

Best Buy has a router on sale this week for $29 after rebate. That's a no-brainer, y'all. Garth: An outsider can only hack into the router if the owner has enabled remote management on the router. Otherwise, it cannot be targeted. You can use ZoneAlarm if you really want to, but it's really not necessary once you have the hardware firewall of the router. All computers behind the firewall are completely hidden from attackers on the Internet. (If you really want to know why, I'll explain it, but it gets kind of technical, and you know how long-winded I can get...) Igotout is right, the great thing is that a router is really a set-and-forget security system. It doesn't take up any of your computer's resources like ZA or WinXP's ICF software firewalls. John: Well, you can have a telescope just like mine, for a mere $3,000! I'd recommend something smaller if you're just starting out, though. But if you really want it, it's a 10-inch Meade LX200GPS Schmidt-Cassegrain with UHTC coatings. Meade has a special until the end of the year where you get $500 off the normal price, and and extra set of 6 Super Plossl eyepieces for another $99 (a great deal--wish they'd been offering it when I bought mine, oh well!) Here's the link for it at the BEST scope store on the internet, Oceanside Photo & Telescope. http://www.optcorp.com/cart/ProductDetail...._ProductID=1512

Kathy: A router might not be a bad idea in any case. A router's internal "firewall" works by splitting the network into two distinct pieces, the outside/Internet/everybody piece and the inside/network/your computers piece. It handles all outgoing and incoming requests for data, automatically acting as a secure "mailman" for the data packets, passing them between the two networks. The beauty of it is that since the router separates the two networks, no one on the outside can see any of the computers on the inside! You could have 1 computer behind that router or a million, and no one on the outside can see (or subsequently hack into) any of them. All traffic coming from your network appears to come from the router instead of any of the computers. The router keeps track of which internal computer made which request and seamlessly routes the incoming packets accordingly. All this takes place behind the scenes, so you don't even know it's happening. Even better, the router itself is very secure from being hacked--most default to accepting configuration commands only from the "inside" computers. (There might be a time when a person would want to remote-manage their router, so you can set it up to accept commands from "outside", but most people never need to do this.) Considering most personal firewall software programs cost $40-$50 anyway, and they must constantly run on your computer, taking up memory and processor time, I'd spend the extra ten bucks and put in a router even for one computer. It also gives you room to expand if you ever decide for a second computer. Don't bother with wireless unless you are sure you're going to have extra computers in your house--then you might want to look into that. My home network is 3 computers, 2 of which are tied into my router via secure wireless cards. I can take my laptop into the back yard and post on GreaseSpot while my telescope takes pictures of the stars...very neat!

What, you want to risk a meteoroid strike or a solar flare around unshielded off-the-shelf hard drives? Ooooooo-kayyy....

Then you'd have bigger problems than restoring backups... (Is western Florida really that seismically active?)

Sure! Buy a new harddrive for each month and vault it like you would a tapeset... But you'd better go read that last paragraph on the link you posted. Your RAID box may not support drives over 137 GB. If it does, you can get the WD 180GB drives for $100 cheaper each at www.mwave.com.

John: Sounds like a good price, although you're limited to the max capacity of a single drive. Still, with 160GB drives under $500, it might be all you really need.