General Questions Thread

[KiNA]

Ah maybe thats where customary practice to each country I guess.. here, its a normal practice ..

[james0246]

Originally Posted by KiNA

Ah maybe thats where customary practice to each country I guess.. here, its a normal practice ..

I guess exciting-t*ts.com is a little different from the rest of the world....

[Ledgem]

Originally Posted by KiNA

Ah maybe thats where customary practice to each country I guess.. here, its a normal practice ..

Here in the US (and in Canada/Britain, likely elsewhere as well) the burden of trust is generally placed on the consumer. Payment must first clear before goods are sent or sold. Consumers do have a number of protections, but the only ones I was really familiar with were those when using credit or certain third party transactions as forms of payment. I've heard that eBay China recently started up, and it was big news because the seller would send the goods before the buyer sent payment. They said it was due to cultural reasons, similar to what you've stated. It is rather interesting...

Thanks for the advice, all.

[Aoie_Emesai]

Originally Posted by Ledgem

Here in the US (and in Canada/Britain, likely elsewhere as well) the burden of trust is generally placed on the consumer. Payment must first clear before goods are sent or sold. Consumers do have a number of protections, but the only ones I was really familiar with were those when using credit or certain third party transactions as forms of payment. I've heard that eBay China recently started up, and it was big news because the seller would send the goods before the buyer sent payment. They said it was due to cultural reasons, similar to what you've stated. It is rather interesting...

Thanks for the advice, all.

Is that so? I didn't know China had a Ebay coming up. That'll be interesting to check out.

[Blerghovic]

What gives wine that slightly sour flavour?

[Kakashi]

It's slightly vinegary due to an excessive amount of acetic acid, referred to as volatile acidity. Normally it's a sign of bad wine. But a minimum level of VA often helps to project a wine's aromas without ruining the flavour. Not sure on the exact science behind it though.

[[DOT].L]

WinXP SP3. Install or not install?

[-KarumA-]

Originally Posted by [DOT].L

WinXP SP3. Install or not install?

I instaleld it, though not much of a difference afterwards

[Ledgem]

Ensure your system is backed up properly and install it.

[felix]

Don't install it.

[Vexx]

Originally Posted by [DOT].L

WinXP SP3. Install or not install?

If you've been doing your auto-updates... there isn't much additional it really installs so there's little reason not to. In my case, it was pretty much transparent from a user perspective (though the release notes are a buttload of reading).

[[DOT].L]

I did go through the release notes last night and it states if one has IE 7/8 beta installed before the SP3 update then IE can't be removed once SP3 is installed unless one uninstall SP3 first. Can someone confirm this?

Sadly, I don't have anything I can use to backup my system right now. Guess I'll hold off the update till a later time.

[Ledgem]

By "backup" I mean that you should have all of your important files, programs, and/or settings easily recoverable should a disaster occur. Ideally you'd have this ready at all times, even if you weren't expecting a major operating system update. In the event that something goes wrong you could ideally just reinstall your former OS and in an hour or so you'd have a bare functioning system - move your files onto it and configure it and then you're set. Or if you're fancy, you'd recover from a disk image or a system-wide backup, and in a few hours you'd basically have your system as it was just before the update.

Either way, it's in your best interests to install it sooner rather than later. It won't provide you with any new features that you'll care about, most likely, but it'll improve security. Security matters. Too many people get lax about it until their systems are breached. Just keep the old saying in mind: an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. It applies.

[Vivio Testarossa]

Why does it seem that a lot of users have a "It won't happen to them" attitude concerning data backup?

[Solace]

For the same reason people don't save money for emergencies. Coasting by on luck.

Also, to [DOT].L - All service packs are essentially a "all in one package" of security updates for the system. If you've been updating constantly, SP3 isn't really needed. It does try to get you to upgrade to IE7 (as in the package auto includes it), but if I remember correctly you can choose not to install it when it asks.

[Scep]

Can someone teach me how to use tables? I have a new sig that has like 8 slices, and i can't put them right. The parts with problems are like that:

The one on the bottom is supposed to be at the right. So, is there any way other than merging the two parts into one gif to arrange the sig?

[KiNA]

The problem is your bits are not in the same height ...

-YOUR IMAGE HERE-
-TEXT 1-
 
-TEXT 2
 

 -TEXT 3-

my current sig table template if you want to use

well, anyway, the simplest thing to do is make sure the sig parts all have the same height since they usually aligned based on their bottom. You can check out the tutorial thread in FC for signature slice tutorial too if you want

[Scep]

Ok then i guess i'll have to redo the whole sig then. Cause i checked what riker said here and apparently there's no way to do it. Aww Thanks for the help anyway.

[KiNA]

Erm, just delete the slice and reslice again o_O?

[SeijiSensei]

If you place two graphics together with no space between them, they appear seamless. Look at my signature. Each of the portraits is a separate, linked image, but they appear to be a single graphic. In HTML you can use "maps" to make areas in a single graphic active, but vB doesn't support maps.

I tried using tables for this originally, but you can't control things like horizontal and vertical spacing in vBulletin tables. If I were writing HTML, I could use CSS styles to control this, but the spacing of vB tables is fixed. So the best solution I found was to concatenate the images without any intervening white space.