Miri and the Gardener

 

The sun shines on the magic forest. It also shines on a giant oak tree, many centuries old. It’s in this tree that Miri’s family lives. Miri is a young Fairy, she’s very small, barely a few centimeters(A couple of inches) like all the fairies of her race.

Fantasy

Don't tell anyone this but I'm a fairy. Nobody knows you see because I never transform around other people. My name is Pixie and I am a green fairy. You see in the fairy tribe I come from they have three different types of fairies: the purple fairy, the

The Two Caterpillars

Once upon a time there were two caterpillars, a brother and a sister, who lived together way way up on the top of a big oak tree. The two caterpillars loved each other very much. They played together, ate together, and watched out for each other.

The Lonely Traffic Light

Once upon a time, there was a traffic light… a lonely traffic light. She felt that nobody gave her much attention. Sometimes people would stand by her and push the button for the light to change, and she felt less lonely while they were waiting. But once the light changed the people would leave and cross the street.
At times, when the light was red, the people waiting in the cars would give her their attention as they waited for the light to turn green. That also made her less lonely, but not for long. Once the light turned green the cars would zoom by without noticing that she existed.

How to Transfer Mails from one Email Account to another for Free

How to copy mails from one email account to another? This visual guide to email migration will show you how to move old messages across Yahoo! Mail, Gmail, Windows Live Hotmail, Microsoft Exchange, your ISP and other popular email services.

Criss-Cross Bristles

No Kidding with God…

Making of a Best Seller

Look, The Ants....

BLUETOOTHING

How to Turn Twitter into a Gmail Notifier

I am ready to share a little project around Gmail that I have been working on this weekend. The idea is that you can turn your Twitter Timeline into a Gmail Notifier and get notified (via tweets) as soon as new email messages arrive in your mailbox.
And since you can link Twitter to your phone number, you can even get SMS text alerts for new Gmail messages on your mobile phone with the help of Twitter. There’s no programming required and you can be up and running in 5 minutes.

Connect Gmail and Twitter through Google Docs

Gmail provide an RSS feed of your mailbox but the big problem is that if you have to auto-publish this RSS feed to Twitter, you’ll have to supply your Google account credentials in plain text. That’s not done.

How to Hide the Data on your Computer

You may want to hide some files and folders on your computer for various reasons. Maybe you don’t want mom to accidentally stumble upon all the stuff that you have downloaded from the Internet. Or you share the home computer with an inquisitive brother and would not like him to view your private files.

Display your Profile Picture in Google Search Results

If you write a blog or have a website where authors can contribute stories, here’s a new feature in Google – Authorship – that you’ll find very hard to ignore (and you should not).

Find the Address of a Place through Google Maps

Work Together In Real Time On Docs, Spreadsheets and More. Learn How.

What’s the address? is a simple tool that can help you find the approximate address of any point on Google Maps.

Bing Can Supply Background Images for your Google Homepage

1. The homepage of Bing

2. The homepage of Google

Turn your monitor off using your keyboard

Using the Monitor Off Utility is a quick and easy way to turn off your monitor when you step away from your computer. As can be seen in the below screenshot, this utility allows the user to setup any HotKey to turn off their monitor from anywhere in Windows. In addition to being able to shut off the monitor, this utility can have a shortcut key start a screen saver and lock the workstation as an extra form of security.

sue the terrosists

Redefine

New version

Add a Recycle Bin to your Flash Drive

While working on another computer and using your own Flash Drive as a place to store and copy files, if a file is deleted it's sent to the Windows Recycle Bin. If you'd like the extra security and peace of mind, use the iBin utility to have all deleted files sent to a Recycle Bin folder on the Flash Drive.
To use this utility download the small iBin utility, run the ibin.exe file from the flash drive, and then delete files by pressing the Windows Key + Delete. When this shortcut key is pressed, any deleted file will be sent to the Flash Drive Recycle Bin instead of the Windows Recycle Bin. Once running the utility can have its

How can I improve my typing?

There are several different techniques a user can do to help improve his or her typing skills. Below is a short list of different ideas and recommendations you can do to help improve your typing. Keep in mind that most people are not going to be able to improve their typing speed overnight.

Proper placement

Learn to type the proper way (no typing with one or two fingers). This means your fingers should be on the home row keys A, S, D, and F with the left hand and J, K, L, and ; with the right hand. Of course if you're on a non-English keyboard or a non-QWERTY keyboard this may change.

• What fingers are used for what keys on the keyboard?

Where should fingers be placed on the keyboard?

As can be seen in the below picture, your left-hand fingers should be resting over the A, S, D, and F keys and your right-hand fingers should be placed over the J, K, L, and ; keys. These keys are considered the home row keys. Your thumbs should either be in the air or very lightly lying on the space bar key.

The Great Escape - Part 1

Here is a story which could become a blockbuster if put on screen! A fascinating account of escapes from Soviet Russia during World War II has lain buried in the files of the India Office Records. Four Poles, one Ukrainian and a Russian woman give their statements, full of discrepancies.
IOR/L/PS/12/380
Olgierd Stołyhwo and Adam Backer were at school together and fought in the Polish Army after the German invasion in 1939. Taken prisoner, they escaped hoping to join the newly formed Polish Army in France. Their chosen route through Hungary was blocked, so they made their way eastwards. They were

The Indian Comforts Fund (1939-45) – Humanitarian relief work for Indian soldiers in Europe

To commemorate VE Day on 8 May 1945, we have a story from guest blogger Dr Florian Stadtler -

The contribution made by South Asians living in Britain to the war effort on the Home Front in World War II remains little known. One organisation, run by South Asian and British women, played a particular important function. An entirely voluntary organisation, the Indian Comforts Fund (ICF) worked in close cooperation with the Indian Red Cross and St John’s Ambulance Service.

Serena Livingstone-Stanley: unsung heroine of imperial exploration

A guest blog from Raymond Howgego whose work featured in Hedley Sutton's last post -
In 1936 the normally staid London publisher, Chatto & Windus, published a stirring account of two women travellers’ adventures in a distant outpost of empire. Entitled Through Darkest Pondelayo, and written by the appropriately christened adventuress Serena Livingstone-Stanley, it was presented in the form of letters back home, edited by one Rev. Barnaby Whitecorn D.D., the author’s ‘next door neighbour’.


The author, together with her female travelling companion Francis and long-suffering maidservant Placket, sail from Harwich on ‘May 14th’ (year unspecified), and via the Mediterranean and Suez Canal reach

Friedrich Spassvogel – an unlived life!

Some lives are untold for a good reason. Several years ago Asian and African Studies added to the stock of their Reading Room a four-volume Encyclopaedia of Exploration compiled by Raymond Howgego (OIA 910.903). What was remarkable about this was that it included a note in the first volume stating that one of the thousands of entries was completely fictitious, and a case of champagne was offered to the first reader diligent enough to identify the spoof. I recognized a kindred spirit in Mr Howgego, but quailed at attempting to comb through well over 3000 pages of text.  

The champagne has been claimed (and no doubt drunk). The indefatigable winner, a German gentleman living in Nice, proved correct in recognizing that his putative fellow countryman, Friedrich Spassvogel - born in Hildesheim in 1606, lost an eye in battle during the Thirty Years' War, went to sea in the 'Treibend' in 1632 in an attempt to break the Anglo-Dutch monopoly in trade with the East, captured and taken to Nova Scotia, escaped to Maine, tried to establish a colony in Georgia, captured for a second time by Spaniards and imprisoned along with his native American wife in Madrid, freed after the payment of a ransom, published his memoirs in Leipzig in 1658 which were later translated into Dutch, French and English, died in Cologne in 1672 - never actually existed. A clue is provided by his surname, which means 'wag'.

Map of the southern part of the coast of Maine c. 1680. (Add. 13970 A)
© The British Library Board


Mr Howgego has just completed a fifth volume of his Encyclopaedia, and appropriately enough this is about imaginary travel narratives.

Meanwhile, I believe that the film rights to 'The Adventures of Friedrich Spassvogel' are still available ...

Hedley Sutton
Asian and African Studies Reference Team Leader

Botanical discoveries and beastly bungalows

RHS National Gardening Week seems a good time to highlight the work of East India Company botanists such as John Forbes Royle who from 1823 was Superintendent of Saharanpur Botanic Garden, located about 1,000 miles west of Calcutta. He was part of a network of people collecting and describing plants, managing botanic gardens and experimenting with plant transfers, often in difficult conditions. Their work led to changes to agricultural production in India and the introduction of new plants to British gardens.
Royle's article in the Journal of the Asiatic Society (1832) tells us that as well as appreciating the aesthetic qualities of plants, he valued botany for its usefulness to medicine and for developing new sources of food and economic products. He believed that the practical benefits of

Whatever happened to Eliza Armstrong?

One hundred years ago William Thomas Stead died in the Titanic disaster aged 62.  He had enjoyed a long career as a journalist and newspaper editor, campaigning on political and social issues. 

 
   W T Stead © UIG/The British Library Board    BL Images Online 

In November 1885 Stead was sentenced at the Old Bailey to three months’ imprisonment for his part in the Eliza Armstrong case. He had intended to highlight the scandal of child prostitution by arranging to buy 13-year old Eliza for £5 from her mother through an intermediary Rebecca Jarrett.   The story of the sale of ‘Lily’ was published by Stead in the Pall Mall Gazette in 'The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon'.

Half cat, half rabbit: a zoo in Bloomsbury

Doctor Dolittle, in the novels by Hugh Lofting, had ‘rabbits in the pantry, white mice in his piano, a squirrel in the linen closet and a hedgehog in the cellar’.  It could almost be a description of Sir Hans Sloane.  In addition to his vast collections of books and manuscripts, natural history specimens, antiquities and curiosities of all kinds, Sloane owned a surprising number of live animals, which he kept in the garden of his house in Bloomsbury Place just down the street from the modern British Museum.

Yvonne FitzRoy and Victor Sassoon

A recent enquiry about the papers of Yvonne FitzRoy [IOPP/ Mss Eur E312] led to the discovery of the letters of Victor Sassoon – a legendary figure in 1930s Shanghai. 

Yvonne FitzRoy (1891-1971), was a society lady with a progressive mind.  She was a theatre actress before the First World War.  But her acting career was cut short when she was summoned by the Scottish Women’s Hospital (supported by the National Union of Scottish Women’s Suffrage Societies) to serve as a volunteer nurse in Romania and Russia.  She was awarded a Russian medal at the end of the War, and continued her adventures in India where she worked as the private secretary for the wife of the Viceroy from 1920 to 1926.  It was probably during this time that she became acquainted with Sir Victor Sassoon, a member of the Indian Legislative Council. 

Yvonne FitzRoy in India, 1923. [Mss Eur E312/14. ©The British Library Board]
Victor Sassoon came to know Yvonne better through his connections with the English aristocracy.  In the early 1920s Sassoon purchased a stately home, West Green House in Hampshire but he never had much

Duke of Cambridge supports campaign against London vice

Prince Adolphus Frederick, first Duke of Cambridge, (1774-1850), son of George III, was a patron of many good causes and benevolent institutions.  One of the associations he supported was the London Society for the Protection of Young Females which was established in 1835.  The Society aimed to suppress juvenile prostitution in the metropolis by
• Closing houses in which juvenile prostitution was encouraged
• Punishing those procuring young girls
• Protecting the ‘unhappy victims’.

East India Company at Home, 1757-1857

From Clive’s victory at Plassey in 1757 to the outbreak of the Mutiny of 1857, Britain’s empire on the subcontinent was administered by the East India Company. A chartered monopoly, the Company significantly expanded its fiscal, territorial and military grip on the subcontinent in the century before its abolition in 1858. By the later 1750s, its servants (that is, its civil and military officers) enjoyed unprecedented access to Asian goods, through bribes, ceremonial gifting, private commerce and the spoils of war. Togethe r with the Company’s official cargoes of Indian and Chinese commodities, these goods helped to transform British families’ material sensibilities and homes.

Bengal Army officers - names, nationalities, fatalities and a phantom

There are many 'untold lives' to be found in the pages of the biographical compilations in the Asian & African Studies Reading Room, one of which is Lives of the officers of the Bengal Army, 1758 - 1834 by Major V.C.P. Hodson (OIR355.332).

Portrait of Adam Atkinson of the Bengal Army by A.W. Devis, Calcutta 1789 (Foster 1065) 

© The British Library Board Images Online


Some of the most fascinating information is to be found in the appendices near the very end of the work, even if some entries leave the casual browser keen to know more. Appendix D, for example, is concerned

“Shrapnel Biddulph” – telegraph engineer, soldier, romantic and artist

Captain Michael Anthony Shrapnel Biddulph was posted to Turkey in 1854, and shortly afterwards to the Crimea, where he served with distinction as assistant engineer of the Royal Artillery, and later as director of submarine telegraphs in the Black Sea. Decorated by the French and Turkish governments, in 1856 he was promoted Brevet Lieutenant Colonel. In 1858 he was appointed Chief Engineer of the Ottoman Telegraph, overseeing the construction of telegraph cable lines in Turkey-in-Asia.

 
Vignette (1)

Vignettes taken from Plan of a Portion of the Constantinople and Bussorah [Basra] Line of Telegraph. War Office, 1860. Maps R.U.S.I. A20.4.

Benevolence from Bengal: Amir Chand’s bequest

The mercantile classes have long been associated with acts of charity within the communities in which they live and the records of the East India Company provide ample evidence of numerous philanthropic deeds. One notable example is a bequest left by one of India’s most famous eighteenth century merchants Amir Chand [Omichund, Umichund].

A major trader with the Nawabs of Bengal and the East India Company, Amir Chand is best remembered

Sir Josiah’s Disobedient Child

Sir Josiah Child (bap.1631, d.1699) was the successful son of a London merchant. He made a large fortune as a brewer and victualler and through the Royal African and East India Companies. Child bought an estate at Wanstead in Essex and lavished money on landscaping. Palladian Wanstead House pictured below was built after Sir Josiah’s death by his son Richard.

View of Wanstead House, by G. Robertson; engraved by Fittler
BL: Maps.K.Top.13.30.d © The British Library Board Images Online

Child was active in local politics, sat as an MP, and served nearly 25 years as an East India Company director, with two periods as Governor. He was the author of a number of economic tracts, and his letters and published works can be read today in the British Library. He married three times and had eight children.

Family budgets in 1920s India

The Royal Commission on the Superior Civil Services in India (the Lee Commission) was appointed in 1923 to enquire into the organisation and general conditions of service, the possibility of transferring any duties and functions to provincial services, and the recruitment of Europeans and Indians.
To assist in its enquiry into the conditions of service the Royal Commission collected examples of the budgets of individual members of the civil service, some very detailed. The general thrust of the evidence submitted was the rising cost of living in India and the inadequate pay of civil servants.
One example is a budget submitted with the written evidence of the Indian Educational Association, Burma (IOR/Q/11/24 No.1002). It compares the Bazaar prices of various goods in 1913/14 and 1923, such as foodstuffs, furniture, crockery and clothes, and lists the cost of the various types of servants (head boy, ayah, cook, paniwallah, sweeper, chauffeur, dhobi, mali, etc).
The anonymous monthly budget of a Professor in the University of Rangoon in his first year of service gives an interesting insight in to what civil servants felt they had to spend to keep up what they saw as their status in the community in which they lived and worked, both in the eyes of other Europeans and of native Indians. The Professor had four servants (personal boy, driver, sweeper and dhobi), employed a typist, owned a car, subscribed to a large number of scientific societies and was a member of three clubs (Golf Club, Gymkhana Club and Boat Club). His wife suffered a break down in her health after only a short time in Burma and had to return to England, and he lists the expenses associated with doctors' bills and her return passage. In fact expenses associated with medical problems were a

The search for Black Rock Part II

Here is the second part of our story from the Andaman Islands contributed by guest blogger N. Francis Xavier.
Giant trees rose on either side of the narrow trail as it snaked through the tropical forest forming a thick canopy overhead. Huge lianas hung down from their branches like pythons.  The trail seemed endless as it dipped and rose and again dipped into the evergreen forest.

Geoengineering and the Fight against Climate Change: Maggie on "To the Point" radio show (audio)

Shutterstock

Two of my favorite people talk about one of my favorite topics, all on the same radio program. Our very own Maggie Koerth-Baker was interviewed by my friend (and former NPR colleague) Alex Chadwick on KCRW's daily show "To the Point" today, to talk about "Geoengineering and the fight against climate change."

Human "Ingredients-List" shirt

Qwantz sends us "A shirt (done in consultation with medical professionals) that not only lists your nutritional

Can a kid be a psychopath?

The New York Times has a fascinating (and, FYI, kind of disturbing) story about young kids who exhibit psychological symptoms similar to what you see in adult psychopaths. It's a complex subject because, while everybody involved agrees these kids could use some kind of intervention, nobody knows exactly what that intervention should be and definitely don't want to stick the kids with a terrifying label that will follow them for their whole lives. More importantly, what we do know is that half of these kids will grow into normal adults—though we don't know exactly why.

Volcano in a trash can

Watch video 

Plinian eruptions are named after Pliny the Younger and Pliny the Elder, who wrote about the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79 and died during said eruption, respectively. This is one of several different types of volcanic eruptions, but it's also one of the most iconic. In a Plinian eruption, a column of magma, gas, and ash shoots straight up, with the gas and ash reaching all the way up into the stratosphere. These are the big, explosive eruptions, with mushroom clouds and rains of rocks and boulders.

How to: Make a unicorn

At Popperfont, the great David Ng discusses the biological and/or evolutionary steps necessary to produce a theoretical real-life unicorn. I find it delightfully ironic that his first possible route involves something that, if I were to show you pictures of it*, you would probably request a unicorn chaser.

High-tech ghost-town being built in the middle of the NM desert

A defense contractor called Pegasus Global Holdings is building a replica of Rock Hill, SC in the middle of the New Mexico desert, which will be used to prototype self-driving cars, green buildings and smart meters. It will be an uninhabited lab, a "theme park for scientists." They're calling it "The Center for Innovation, Testing and Evaluation." From Don Worthington's article in the Rock Hill Herald:

Looting Leads Archaeologists to Oldest Known Mayan Calendar

On 21 July 1561, a crowd of indigenous farmers cried out in the town square of Maní, Mexico, as a Franciscan missionary set fire to dozens of fragile Maya books, or codices. Condemned by the missionaries as "the Devil's trickery," these written texts preserved knowledge gleaned from centuries of Maya science and mathematics. Similar acts of destruction followed, obliterating hundreds of other Maya codices. Today, only a handful of readable, precolonial codices survive.

Vesta, the planet that might have been

This is Vesta, the second largest asteroid in our solar system's main asteroid belt. Specifically, this is a view of Vesta's south pole, taken by NASA's Dawn spacecraft last September.

Sendak-ian Avengers

DeviantArt's ~AgarthanGuide created this Maurice Sendak/Avengers mashup: "Two things on my mind today: RIP Maurice Sendak. Yay Avengers. Okay- I put together some wallpapers using the original- I tried to make them as big as possible and cover the major aspect ratios. You can download them here. Enjoy!"
Avengers on Parade (RIP Maurice Sendak) (via Super Punch)

How did alleged 9/11 mastermind KSM dye beard red at Gitmo? Only his stylist knows.

Adam Serwer writes at Mother Jones about KSM's recent facial hair makeover. He grew a beard, but how did he get his hands on henna with which to dye it a ginger-red? Visiting friends? Home-brewed stain from materials inside the camp? No one knows, or if the camp guards do, it's a national security secret. Snip:

As for why KSM dyed his beard? Former State Department counterterrorism adviser Will McCants says that KSM is probably trying to emphasize his commitment to Islam. KSM grew his long, flowing beard only after he was imprisoned at Guantanamo—previous photographs show him with a trim beard or a thick mustache.
"KSM is following the practice of the Prophet Muhammad, who recommended dyeing a grey beard red," McCants says, calling

Curiosity in the desert

Last week, scientists used ice caves in Austria as a stand-in for Martian caves, testing spacesuits and rovers in the freezing chambers. This week: We go to the desert near Baker, California, where NASA is testing out its Curiosity rover. Curiosity is 86 days away from landing on the real Martian surface.
Gene Blevins / Reuters

Newly-discovered Mayan calendar in Guatemala proves (again) the world won't end in 2012

An archaeological expedition in the northeastern lowlands of Guatemala yields an amazing discovery: the "9th-century workplace of a city scribe, an unusual dwelling adorned with magnificent pictures of the king and other royals and the oldest known Maya calendar."
From Thomas Maugh's report in the Los Angeles Times, on the dig in the ruins of Xultun led by William Saturno of Boston University:

Beautiful 1919 Poe illustrations by Harry Clarke

                                                       

Verizon refused to help police locate unconscious man unless they paid his phone bill

Nancy Schaar at the Times Reporter:

A 62-year-old Carrollton area man was found unconscious and unresponsive Thursday morning during an intense search overnight by Carroll County sheriff deputies, an Ohio State Highway Patrol trooper and the patrol’s airplane. [Sheriff] Williams said he attempted to use the man’s cell phone signal to locate him, but the man was behind on his phone bill and the Verizon operator refused to connect the signal unless the sheriff’s department agreed to pay the overdue bill. After some disagreement, Williams agreed to pay $20 on the phone bill in order to find the man.

Jack Williamson on what the future meant in the era of scientifiction

Here's science fiction grand master Jack Williamson ruminating on what the future once meant, when he started working in the field, including a reading of an early essay on the future he wrote in the 1920s or 1930s:

Rider mask from Bob Basset

A nice piece today from Bob Basset, the genius
Ukrainian steampunk fetish mask-makers:

"Rider." "Rider" Art leather mask 

<a href="http://www.freewebsitedirectory.com">Free Website Directory</a>

.Shutdown, Restart, And Logoff Icons On The Desktop

You might want to have shortcuts on the Desktop for shutdown, hibernation, etc. Right-click on the Desktop and make a new shortcut by selecting New > Shortcut. Then in the Type the location of the item: box, enter “shutdown.exe -s -t 00”, where “00” is the delay in seconds.
(You can increase it.) You will then be asked to select a name (call it “Shutdown”, for example). After creating the shortcut, you can change the icon assigned to it by right clicking on the shortcut and selecting Properties. The window that comes up next has a “Change Icon” option, which is easy to use. For a Restart shortcut, use “shutdown.exe -r -t 00”. Replacing -r by -l

Limit Logon Hours For Users

Parents might want to limit their children’s computer usage, so they can set a time limit only between which they will be automatically allowed to log into their Windows account. Limited usage for particular users for certain time periods can be set through commands.The command for doingthis is:
net user /time:.

For example, “net user Anu /time:M- F,08:00-17:00” will only let the user Anu log in between 8 and 5 from Monday to Friday.

Startbutton in Windows XP displays the System Time

Download starclock.
This tiny piece of code comes with startclock.ini file for making configuration changes such as 12-hour clock with seconds, 24-hour clock, load program at startup, refresh rate (be careful while changing this setting; smaller the number, more the CPU usage) and hide tray icon. To exit
this program, press “Ctrl+Alt+x”. That’sit, now you can save precious space on the taskbar by replacing the clock from the system tray.

1.Replace Microsoft Windows XP “Copying…”animation

The Windows file copying animation is located in shell32.dll. This animation can be replaced or deleted with the help of a tool called Resource Hacker Download it From
http://files1.softwarepod.com/33821/reshack.zip
Shell32.dll can be found in \WINDOWS\system32 directory. Back up this DLL, and open a copy in Resource Hacker.

Make a USB drive a key to boot into XP

For our task, a USB drive of a capacity ofat least 256 MB is required. If we need to include extra utilities, hotfixes, and sevicepacks, then we need at least a 512 MB drive.

Format the drive using "FAT" filesystem.

Registry hacks to Improve performance of Windows XP

1.Load Applications Faster
The Windows prefetcher aims to load applications faster by “pre-fetching” the application and storing it in the pre-fetch cache. You can speed up application loading by changing the default value of one the settings under the relevant key.
Navigate to:
HLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\SessionManager\Memory Management\PrefetchParameters

The default value for the EnablePrefetchersetting is 3.Change this value to 5to make applications load faster. You can experiment with higher values—up to 9—and see if you get a further
improvement.Since this relates to the system, a reboot is required for the change to take effect.

Joss Whedon on his success

A beautiful note from Joss Whedon to the world, his admirers, and his past self, explaining what it feels like to have directed a movie that broke all box-office records for opening weekend:

What doesn't change is anything that matters. What doesn't change is that I've had the smartest, most loyal, most passionate, most articulate group of -- I'm not even gonna say fans. I'm going with "peeps" -- that any cult oddity such as my bad self could have dreamt of. When almost no one was watching, when people probably should have STOPPED watching, I've had three constants: my family and friends, my collaborators (often the same), and y'all. A lot of stories have come out about my "dark years", and how I'm "unrecognized"... I love these stories, because they make me seem super-important, but I have never felt the darkness (and I'm ALL about my darkness) that they described. Because I have so much. I have people, in my life, on this site, in places I've yet to discover, that always made me feel the truth of success: an artist and an audience

Spectrum Fantastic Art Live convention, May 18-20 Kansas City, MO

Bob Self says:

Baby Tattoo Books is thrilled to be co-presenting a first of its kind art convention built around the Spectrum Fantastic Art community. For nearly two decades, the Spectrum juried competition and resulting art annual have promoted and elevated fantasy, science fiction and other genre art to new levels of respectability in the commercial and fine art worlds. Fantastic art is not only visually stunning, it is as professionally viable and significant as any other art form. Spectrum Fantastic Art Live will be a physical, geographically centered gathering of creators and fans of amazing creativity.

Automate the installation of Windows XP

You can create a CD that can install Windows automatically, putting in all the details and answering all the dialog boxes. The secret behind the unattended nature of the whole thing is the answer file, which tells Windows what to do while it’s installing. The answer file can be created using Windows Setup Manager. Using this tool, you can make the answer file so powerful that you can even tell
Windows to include or exclude individual components, set the display resolution, and
more. Here’s how you do it.

Bypass Windows File Protection in Windows XP

There are two different solutions, depending on whether you have SP2 installed or not.

If you don’t have SP2 installed
Locate the file sfc_os.dll, which should be in your System32 folder. Copy it and name it sfc_os.bak. Open this file using a hex editor such as XVI32,which is an excellent freeware. This is an extremely simple edit and does not require an editor with advanced features. All you need to do is change two values. The location of these values will vary depending on whether you’re using Windows XP without a Service Pack or Windows XP with SP1, but the actual hex values to change will be the same.For Windows XP with no Service Pack installed, go to offset 0000E2B8 (E2B8 hex). For Windows XP with SP1, go to offset 0000E3BB (E3BB hex). At those offsets, change the hex values 8BC6 to 9090.Note: Depending on your hex editor, you may see the value separated by a space, as in “8B C6”. If you can’t find the values, do not proceed. It could be that your version of XP is different. The edit as described here only applies to English retail versions of Windows XP.

Create A Special Folder In Windows Explorer

1.In the Registry Editor, navigate to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID. Create a new1 key with a Globally Unique Identifier(GUID). The GUID is a 128-bit identifier that is usually generated by Windows. This can be a random number that is used touniquely identify COM objects. Create a key using this random GUID:{FD4DF9E0-E3DE-11CE-BFCF-ABCD1DE12345}

Creating A Windows XP Boot CD With SP2

1. First, create a folder on your hard drive e.g. D:\XPCD. Now, copy the entire contents of existing Windows XP CD to this folder. The Windows XP SP2 executable file is an archive of the Service Pack 2 files, so you can use WinZip and extract SP2 files to another folder say D:\SP2. Now, locate update.exe under D:\SP2. This can be found inside the sub-folder named ‘update’. Go to the DOS command prompt and change your directory to this ‘update’ folder. Run the commandcommand “update where/integrate:"(dir)" “(dir)” is the directory you saved the Windows XP CD files to, ( “D:\XPCD” in ourcase). This will start integrating SP2 into the Windows XP Installation files saved at D:\XPCD. You should get message box confirmation that integration was successful.Now the D:\XPCD folder contains Windows XP installation files with SP2 integrated.

Scheduling Connecting And Disconnecting From Your ISP

With many ISPs using PPPoE-based connections, and many ISPs having awkward schemes such as night-unlimited it’s a good idea to schedule your dialling process rather than staying up late at night.Once connected, your downloads can start. You can also schedule to connect to VPNs.

First we create a batch file. Start Notepad (or any other text editor). Enter the following:
RASDIAL

WINDOWS XP Hidden Applications

 

Go to Start > Run and type the executable name (eg: charmap) to run these applications.

Change Your IP in windows xp

1.Goto start>>run>>type 'command' and hit enter

Now you will get an MSDOS prompt screen.

2. Type "ipconfig /release" and hit enter

Create A Bootable XP CD That Pre-installs Additional Programs

To create a bootable XP CD that pre-installs additional programs, first install Windows Unattended CD Creator (WUCC). You need to have Microsoft .NET Framework 1.1 or higher installed.Windows Unattended CD Creator is a very small application that will help you create an user-customized Windows bootable CD. You can choose which drivers, components or hot fixes to be installed and you can even set your network settings. All you need to do in a normal Windows installation is taken cared of by this little application, so you can install your operating system in the fastest way possible

Space Tugboat Could Help Move Inexpensive Payloads in Orbit

 
A Seattle company has announced plans to build a new spacecraft that, like its Earth-bound counterparts, is all about moving other vehicles around. Spaceflight Inc. is designing what it’s calling the Sherpa to fulfill the need for an orbital tugboat that can move payloads, such as satellites, to different orbits around Earth.

Navy Wants Ultra-Violet Cloaking Device for Jet Fighters

The U.S. military is already investing tens of billions of dollars to make its jet fighters less visible to radars and infrared sensors. Now the Pentagon wants the defense industry to come up with a system that can cloak fighters from another telltale type of radiation: ultra-violet energy from the sun.