I am also not seeing anyones pictures, and my smiley box isnt there either...

Do you have any type of extension installed that blocks pop-ups or something (which may have gotten set to block images also?)

Since this is a strange problem, some sort of broken extension is the only thing I can think of.

In Tools, Extensions - you can right click, and DISABLE them. You may want to go through and disable some of them to see if any of them are causing a problem. (Then you can renable them after testing if they were not the problem.)

Plus you may have already answered this, is it just BrainKing with Firefox that is not working, or do you see the same strange thing on other sites with Firefox?

BIG BAD WOLF: I have already tried it with my extensions disabled, and I havent noticed any problems, except with brainking using firefox.

I was on brainking using firefox when this child had his fun banging my keyboard and my mouse!

Maybe it will help to know.... the spacing between the names on my friends list is larger than normal, and also the space between the names on my games list is also different than normal

I will have to think about this some more. BrainKing should not know or care what browser a user is using - and would either think Firefox is messed up for all sites you visit, or BrainKing is messed up for all browsers you use.

OR one other thing I thought about while I was trying this, go to Tools, Options - and the "Content" area.

To the right of "load Images", choose "Exceptions"

If Brainking is listed there, choose and REMOVE it.

BIG BAD WOLF:

Thanks BBW, that was it!!!! I knew it would be something like that, i just couldnt find where!

Thanks to everyone who gave me advice as well!!!!

FYI
Anyone that might not have a 100% legal copy of XP and does the latest windows update and find they now get that silly Windows Genuine Advantage screen bother them let me know. I can help you remove it.. shhhhhhhh!!

Czuch Chuckers: Hey, how come my banana doesnt dance anymore?

Czuch Chuckers: .
.
.
It happened to me before for unknown reasons?!?!? But after a while and to be specific: a Firefox restart didn't help but 2 restarts helped!
Go figure!

You can of course try the following if you use Firefox:
Type in the address bar: about:config
and then find: image.animation_mode
and see if the value is set to normal. If not then set it and restart Firefox.....


DOUBLECRAP! Banana appears non-animated to me too.....

Error: The stylesheet
Could somebody tell me what the below means, been trying to viw this website, never had any problems before, but now keep getting this error message, and the website doesnt load properly, is it my end or the originators end


http://www.directholidays.co.uk/media/dhuk-topnav.css was not loaded because its MIME type, "text/plain", is not "text/css".

Rose: is it moreorless safe to do those updates anyway?

Do you mean the windows updates or the tool to remove the Windows Genuine Advantage screen update?

the windows updates... . 

I have read on http://www.firewall-net.com/ "Look'n'Stop" is the best Firewall. Staying the first before the well known McAfee, Norton and others.

Have you some divergents opinions?

Amazingly, no clue about Microsoft Firewall. What could be its value?

Spirou: I used to use Sygate until Norton took them over. It was one of the best up until the take over. Also, ZoneAlarm is pretty good.

pawnme: Yes i use Zone Alarm, its very good.

    McAffe?

Marfitalu: Is it a good Firewall and Anti-virus program?

Marfitalu: I use hotmail and Mcfee is automatically used to scan all incoming and outgoing e-mails for viruses. I have never had a problem with it

Groucho: I think kaspersky is better than Mcfee.

Groucho: LOVE McAfee!!!! We just installed it about a week ago because I kept getitng hit with viruses with our old crap from yahoo/sbc...AMAZING this mcafee..I would highly recomend it!

i prefer to use Macs and simply not get virii (nor spyware, nor one tenth of the popups Windows users get) in the first place. it's a much easier, less expensive, and less time-consuming approach. :)

plaintiger: sorry plaintiger, but MAC OS X is is so slow and for most of common user not so easy to use. Btw, how many applications can you find for Mac? For example when comparing with Microsoft it is minor ammount and not to forget Mac´s are so expensive without getting any added value.
Probably Mac users will not like me, but Macintosh is only waste of money. They have good marketing but nothing more...and security of computers doesn´t matter on operating system but on behaving of user, protection (firewall, anti-viruses etc) so it is very easy (but not true indeed) to say, use Mac´s, you´ll be secured.

temo and plaintiger: as one of the few who use both systems for many years now my experience tells me there are real benefits from both systems: the huge amount of software and general compatibilities, and of course less cost for the whole hardware count for microsoft. but i would never use something else than a macintosh if i was a professional dj or photographer and needed for example a 9-hour-stability of my eqipment ;-) using a mac is not only the question of prestige and as a mac user i do not need many many software-applications windows-fans would probably like...

and plaintiger: for it-(semi-professionals and up its not that important to get virii or not. today, you have four hard-disks with four windows-versions, so the average loss of two whole windowsOS per week on windows isnt that enerving and not very expensive...

temo: first, OS X is not slow at all - unless you're running it on a very outdated machine, and even then it's still usable. i have one 300 MHz Mac notebook that i bought new in 1998 and on which one is not supposed to be able to install any version of OS X higher than 10.2, but which i've hacked to run the current version (10.4.7), and it's a little sluggish but still perfectly usable on there. on my 1.67 GHz PowerBook, and even on my old 450 MHz towers, the OS is perfectly speedy.

second, i've been using Macs personally and professionally for 18 years now and i have never had any problem finding more excellent software than i've needed to do everything i need to do. there is a whole lot more software for Windows, but it's all extraneous, useless trash (99% of it bad games) being sold - if in fact it's being sold at all - for a dollar a box out of bargain bins at CompUSA. the pool of actual useful software is about the same size for both platforms: there's microsoft office-type programs and suites, email apps, web browsers, accounting apps, graphics apps (always superior for the Mac, as the Mac's graphics have always been superior) and the rest is specialized stuff and games, neither of which the Mac lacks. the "more software" argument is meaningless anyway: how many spreadsheet applications do you need to run? one. so what does it matter whether there are four spreadsheet apps you don't run, or fifty? the only software that matters is the software that people use, and that pool is the same size for both platforms, and even includes many of the very same applications. if there wasn't *enough* software for the Mac, the Mac would have died in 1985. but it didn't, and now many people are switching to it because of the superior stability (and increased software availability) of its UNIX core.

and with the advent of MacIntel machines, you can run the Mac OS, UNIX, Linux, Windows, and pretty much any other OS you could possibly want to - and its software - all on one machine anyway. and that machine is a Mac.

oh yeah, and that vintage 1998 Mac i've got running the current OS? it's been up continuously, being used simultaneously as a workstation and a web server, for 54 days, one hour and eleven minutes.

i hope anyone can help me

i am trying to send a string of characters (ascii codes 0 to 255) over the serial port using the SerialPort control in C# (vs 2005 pro)

the characters arrive nice and sweet ... up to 7F, the characters with ascii code 80 and higher (hex) are sent as 3F all the time (as soon as the 8th bit is used 3F will be sent)

does know anyone what could cause this problem, and maybe how it can be solved or done otherwise ?

i am using the code below :

string strMsg = "";
for (int intI = 0; intI <256; intI++)
{
  strMsg += Convert.ToChar(intI);
}
comKAR.Write(strMsg);
</pre>

i am making the application for an ipaq (windows mobile 5.0)
i am using c# (i am more experienced in vb6, but i need c# for the ipaq)

i just found out that the 3F character is sent when a parity error occurs
so maybe thats the problem ?

i made a lot of application which used the serial port (all with vb6 though, and 1 with c#) and i never got a parity error (maybe i was just lucky ;))

can anyone explain to me when a parity error might occur and what might cause it ?

any ideas are welcome as it will offer me something more to test and check and continue from

thanks in advance ;)

Plaintiger,
I found this comparison of performance of the Xserve Server Platform using mac and pc on very prestigious server anandtech.
For more infos, please see this page
Briefly resuming, it says "The difference between the PowerMac running Linux and Mac OS X Server is absolutely striking. Mac OS X server shows better performance going from one to a second connection (and thus thread) because the second CPU steps in and helps carry the load. After that, however, performance completely collapses and stabilizes at around 50 queries per second. "

Another result of to be not competitive to pc performance is starting of building new mac= s using intel processors.
The problem is not even in hardware but unfortunallz in operating system.
And what is funny all of that? If you want to use service packs of Tiger, let´s say 10.1, 10.2,10.3 or 10.4, the only possibility of using them is to buy them separately as a NEW, yes, new operating system. Can you imagine that you have to pay for each service pack of Windows?

And one more example:
the price of iMac starts on 1299$ (see for example page of apple )
I can give you several examples what kind of hardware is possible to buy for 1299$.

You can be sure that Mac´s cannot compare to those computers.

Finaly, I would like to say that I respect all opinions but imho who really care about his/her money won´t buy mac´s. There are too many reasons for not doing so.

Any comments?

Is a Registry Cleaner a good thing to have?
If so which one is good and which one should be avoided?

volant: i use regclean (from microsoft) which also compresses your register

and i use easycleaner which also offers the options to remove useless files and removes a few more registry entries

Hrqls: I'm not really sure, as I never worked directly with Serial Port. But parity errors normally occur if
a) there occured an error during sending and one bit was changed or
b) maybe the parity bit was corrupted by your program?
Maybe your connection is set to a bytelength of 7 bit and you overwrite the parity bit? Again: I don't really have a clue, but this was what came to my mind ;) Good luck in finding the solution :)

Hrqls: thank you

Mr. Shumway: yes thats what i thought as well .. but it only occurs with characters with an ascii value of 128 (80) or higher .. and with all of them .. so it cant be an accidental loss of data

the databits are set to 8 in my program
i dont know how to check the databits of the serial port on the ipaq though .. it doesnt have a real serial port .. it uses a special cable to the normal connection on the ipaq (which normally ends in an usb connector :))

maybe the cable cant handle 8 databits ? but that would be weird as its serial data and not parallel so the data itself shouldnt matter

that leaves the driver (which is a default driver as i didnt have to install anything) or the serialport control in c# (or the functions i use to control the serialport) ?

Marfitalu: thats the same message which i get when i shutdown my laptop .. i dont get it all the time .. but sometimes i do .. its quite annoying .. and a irritating blue color :)

Marfitalu: That normally means that you have a problematic driver installed. My WLAN Module caused that over months ;) Maybe you can remove it by updating all of your drivers? (I bought myself a new WLAN card , since mine was from a cheap manufacturer with crappy drivers )

Marfitalu: Sounds like the best solution ;)

Hrqls: Can you try converting those 8 bits you send/receive to 7 bits?
I googled a bit and found a Base64 Encoder/Decoder, but maybe the .NET framework already has something similar ???

hexkid: thanks

that would be nice .. but i think the receiving side has to receive decode the 7 bits back to 8 bits again and i have no control over the receiver side

will have a look though, it might be a solution :)

Hrqls: i found something!!

By default, SerialPort uses ASCIIEncoding to
encode the characters. ASCIIEncoding encodes all
characters greater then 127 as (char)63 or '?'.
To support additional characters in that range,
set Encoding to UTF8Encoding, UTF32Encoding, or
UnicodeEncoding.

before i open the port i will try

comKAR.Encoding = Encoding.UTF8;

Hrqls: i am on the right track .. it doesnt send 3F anymore .. but now what should be 80 sends C2 80
81 is now C2 81, ...., FF is now C3 BF

i will see what i can do now ... at least the parity error (which wasnt one imo ;)) is gone

Hrqls: the encoding classes wont help me .. i need to send 1 byte which has to hold characters from ascii value 0 to ascii value 255 .. the only encoding class which sends only 1 byte is the ascii encoding which sends the 63 (3F) when i try to send a character with ascii value of 128 or higher

but! (yeah! ;)) i can also send the string or character array as a byte array ... which then bypasses the encoding class (or simply doesnt need it)

this works! ;)

so for the loop to send all characters with ascii value from 0 to 255 i now use :

byte[] bytArray;
bytArray = new byte[256];
for (int intI = 0; intI <256; intI++)
{
	bytArray[intI] = (byte)intI;
}
comKAR.Write(bytArray, 0, 256);

which works flawlessly

thanks for the help and ideas .. it set me on the right track and made it work :)

volant: Yes, I think it is. Occasionaly, you can use it to scan your registry and delet needless paths and keys in registry.

Furthermore, I have a good experiences using Advanced Uninstaller 2006 instead of using remove programsa app. in control panel in windows. It deletes you all trash of application you want to be deleted, than scan your registry and finaly deleted all uncessery keys in it (or created when installing prog).
that is what I can really recommend and this way you can preced to overload your registry in Win.

temo: thank you for your help 

i'm on a mac laptop and i downloaded opera, it is very fast, but i can't figure out how to enlarge the text.
thx. ellie

ellieoop: with the mouse: Ctrl+mouse wheel
with the keyboard: NUM<+> to zoom in; NUM<-> to zoom out

You can find more shortcuts at the Opera features page

when i type it looks tiny, but reading it here, it's fine.

i can't figure out how to empty history, i went to preferences and it says history, but when i open it, it says empty cache, and under tools, it says history, and it has 100s of games, and i seem to only be able to delete them one by one, does it show up differently on a mac?