Patrick

I've been hearing a lot of good things about this movie. Have you seen it? Thoughts? Patrick

A new article on this: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/05/02/PKQ51059AN.DTL

Welcome back.

Welcome.

Hello, KarateForums.com recognizes one member every month as the Member of the Month for their positive contributions to this community. The May 2008 selection is... ShoriKid. Congratulations!

Congrats.

Congrats.

That's great. But, seriously, I agree with you on store brands. I was just eating a Wal-Mart brand (Great Value) strawberry pop tart. Tastes good to me. The Wal-Mart store brand doesn't just apply to food either, they make tons of stuff. Same for other store brands.

Hey NewEnglands_KyoSa, No problem, glad to help. Unfortunately, after talking with a friend, SpinRite isn't going to fix electrical problems. Sorry. Thanks, Patrick

Welcome.

Hey NewEnglands_KyoSa, I'm sorry to hear this. I know how frustrating this can be as it's happened to me at least twice. Get something to drink because this turned into an epic post right in front of my eyes. First and foremost, I would take this as a lesson and learn from it and do what you can to make sure it never happens again. A couple of years ago, I almost lost all of my files. My business files, my personal files (lots of pictures), etc. I wanted the data so much I sent it the drive to a recovery firm where the price would have been like $2k - $5k if they were able to recover it. After they looked at it, they told me they couldn't recover it. Sheesh. They can recover hard drives that have been in floods and fire, but my hard drive sitting in my computer in my room is damaged beyond any recovery? Is there paranormal activity in my room? Anyway, if the data on your HD is that important, as it was to me, then you may want to look into a data recovery firm. Take the hard drive, put it somewhere safe and do a Google search and find a recovery firm that looks good. This probably won't make sense in your case, but I wanted to mention it. What happened to me was I lucked out. I had put the data on a second hard drive a month or two or three ago and then deleted it. But, when you simply delete something from a hard drive, it's not actually deleted. So, I was able to recover, I would say, 80% of my files from that. To say I was overjoyed would be an understatement. However, I took it as a lesson and a wake up call. I would never put myself in that vulnerable position again, to lose everything I had worked on and created. I set myself up a backup system. For under $250, you can get yourself set up with an awesome, well running backup system. I highly recommend you do so. Assuming you run Windows, I recommend you do three things: 1. Buy the book, "Upgrade Your Life: The Lifehacker Guide to Working Smarter, Faster, Better". There are good instructions in this book about setting up a backup system that you'll appreciate. Plus, it contains TONS of other tips, as well, for doing more and doing it more efficiently online. Awesome book. http://www.amazon.com/Upgrade-Your-Life-Lifehacker-Working/dp/0470238364 2. Buy yourself an external hard drive. Figure out how much data you have on your computer that you want to backup and try to multiply that by 4-5, if you can, then buy an HD that size. You can get an all-in-one solution that has the actual HD plus what is called an enclosure, that holds the HD and allows it to interact with your computer. I have this one: http://www.amazon.com/Western-Digital-WDG1U7500N-Essential-External/dp/B000RY2PLG/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1209137778&sr=8-1 But, there are others, just do a search on Amazon and you'll find them in various size increments. 3. Purchase SyncBackSE. This is affordable, powerful, but pretty easy to configure, backup software. http://www.2brightsparks.com/syncback/syncback-hub.html These three items cost $249.78 (whoa, just made it under than $250, totally by accident, lol) if you elect to have SyncBack sent to you on a CD. The HD stores your backup files, the software puts them there automatically. As you'll read in the Lifehacker book, your backup system must work on it's own. If you have to do something, it will eventually fail to get done and that will be the moment your PC fails. An efficient backup system is one that works by itself and notifies you when something goes wrong. At the very least, you want it to run nightly when the computer is not being used and then have your computer shut itself down (which is easy enough to set up, as well). That's what I have mine do. Know this, though: all hard drives fail. There will come a point where your current one does. This is why you cannot entrust your data to just one hard drive. If you have two, the likelihood of both of those dying at the same time is relatively unlikely. So, when the eventual happens - when one of them dies, you'll have the other. And then you can replace the one that died (make sure you do). The one issue is that they are both in the same location, so if you have a fire or flood... well, that's obviously not good. But, at the same time, having this small box with your latest files on it makes it easier for you to simply grab it as you leave the house in such an emergency. If you aren't there, then it's pretty much lost. But, that's an emergency scenario. I do, eventually, hope to plan for it, though. I found the Sentry Safe QE5541, which is a USB safe that is both fire and water resistant. You can put the HD in there, but still have it interact with the computer. So, that's pretty cool. Hopefully all of this helps. One other note. I had an HD issue recently where I could not get the hard drive to run. A friend of mine mentioned a program called SpinRite to me. If you use XP, you may want to give it a look. It's not really cheap - $89, but after allowing it to run for a long time (like 12 hours or so), I was actually able to boot the HD and get the most recent versions of files, which was pretty awesome. It's not a bad program to have a copy of, either, even if it doesn't work in this particular instance. Anyway, good luck! Patrick

I don't think this had any bad stuff in it... Superstar by Lupe Fiasco featuring Matthew Santos. Just discovered it myself, but I like it. Especially the chorus. May not be fast enough.

Hello, Just as a general note, this discussion is OK for now, but I did want to post a reminder to keep it out of the political realm. Focus on ways that you are saving money to cope with financial issues, assuming you are having them. Thanks! Patrick

Thank you for the submission.

Thanks chuck7413.

Thanks Rusty, Danielle and ps1.

No problem.

Ouch. Get well all.

So, you are talking about writing on the web. Ok, cool. I write on the web a lot. When you put information out there, there is always going to be the risk of plagiarism. (That's not just on the web, but in print and in other mediums, though it is perhaps much easier to do on the web, through copying and pasting). Does that mean you shouldn't write? That's up to you, I guess. But, you shouldn't let content thieves stop you from creating content, if you really want to! There is a great site that talks about how to deal with people who take your content, etc. It's http://www.plagiarismtoday.com - I'd definitely recommend giving it a look. Patrick

Thanks Brian, NewEnglands_KyoSa and Heidi.

Hello and welcome. Are you speaking about writing on this website or just writing in general? Thanks, Patrick

Welcome.

Hello, I am very proud to announce that my new book, "Managing Online Forums: Everything You Need to Know to Create and Run Successful Community Discussion Boards", is now available and can be purchased online at Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble.com and other retailers. If you are in the United States, it is being stocked nationally at Barnes & Noble locations, as well. You can check stock status at the closest store to you on their website. "Managing Online Forums" is the result of my years of experience running forums just like this one. I wouldn't have reached this point without all of the great staff members (Heidi, Brian, Danielle, Eric, Rusty, Ed, Nicholas and many others) that I have had and all of the supportive members that have positively contributed and helped me to build my knowledge. So, thank you for helping me to grow, improve and have the experience to share with others through this project. The book is definitely appropriately titled: it is truly a forums management book, but with principles that can apply to other types of online communities, like blogs, as well. From creating the infrastructure of the community and setting and enforcing policies to dealing with troublemakers and managing staff. This isn't a programming book or a software book, this is all about managing the actual forums. Here is a look at the chapters featured in the book: Chapter 1. Laying the Groundwork Chapter 2. Developing Your Community Chapter 3. Developing Guidelines Chapter 4. Promoting Your Community Chapter 5. Managing Your Staff Chapter 6. Banning Users and Dealing with Chaos Chapter 7. Creating a Good Environment Chapter 8. Keeping It Interesting Chapter 9. Making Money It also features three helpful appendices at the end that include online resources, a glossary and blank, general templates that you can use as a basis for your own user guidelines, staff member guidelines and contact templates (pre-written messages for you and your staff to use when contacting members). For more information on the book, including a full table of contents, advance praise, interviews and reviews, an excerpt, downloadable document templates, an example forums setup and more, please check out the book website. Thank you for reading and for visiting KarateForums.com. Sincerely, Patrick

Welcome aboard.

Congrats.