GeekScribes

As wonderful as it may seem, the Internet is a fascinating tool to which everyone (well almost) has adopted a keen interest of the benefits it provides. However the more time you spend surfing on it, the more likely you are getting addicted to it. Over the last few news a new phenomenon has increasing at an alarming rate. Scientists call it the Internet Addiction Disorder (IAD) and it has been the subject of new research and debate.

The concern is so big that in the U.S, they have a launched an addiction recovery program to help sufferers of IAD to better manage their life in a more ‘harmonious’ way. You might think this only concern to those who ‘Google’ everyday. Wrong guys!! Internet-based video games falls into this category. The program known as reSTART is meticulously planned over 45 days and it has already received it’s first patient, a 19 year old who cannot deprive himself of World of Warcraft.

So how do you know if you are an IAD sufferer? reSTART has outlined 9 symptoms by which are qualified for admittance:

Have a strong desire to use the Internet

Decreasing or withdrawal of internet leads to symptoms like malaise, relentlessness, lack of concentration and so on.

Increasing usage of Internet results into satisfaction

Difficulty to stop the usage despite you are aware it’s harmful

Unable to control the duration of time of internet use

Social, recreational and other personal interests decreases

Solace is found in using the Internet so as to flee from the outside pressures

Extent of use is denied to friends, teachers or schoolmates

Everyday routines and social functions (academic, workability) are impaired

The treatment? Well basically it cuts off the web and online gaming and focuses more on social skills. The patients are constantly followed by a recreation coach, a therapist, exercise and yoga instructors and more. Besides each patient have a schedule to follow which includes physical exercises (sports and fitness), chores, vocational training, a 3 hour back to nature period, a regular life quest and of course he/she is given a personal time everyday from 8.30 PM to 10.00 PM after which the lights are out!

Of course, such program does not come cheap!! You’ll have to pay a hefty $14,500 to get admitted. Considering what it offers it’s worth it’s price but it should be the last resort to cure yourself. In many cases Internet addiction is self corrective. It has been proven that heavy Internet users temporary endures this illness as gradually they decrease their time on the computer. The point it’s up to you guys how you use it!

I hope it’s not too late for you. Feel free to voice out your opinions about it!!

This is a question that has been puzzling me for quite a while. Especially now, after seeing Shah says “Do not use my pics” or something along those lines. Till now, I had been using Google Images, searching for pictures, and using them. Yep, this implies without permission.

Then when I was blogging on the Olympics, I had to search like mad to get Olympic pics, and I had to settle for pictures that The Guardian and Reuters photographers had snapped.

But then, I asked myself this question: “Ddid I just ripped off somebody’s work?”

Yes, I guess I did. Some guy or lady had to go to the Olympics, sit there for hours, waiting for the perfect shot, using thousands of dollars worth of equipment that they had carried with them. And what did I just do? STEAL THEIR WORK! Oh shi..!

Even then, I tried to redeem myself by posting link back to the work of those people, and giving them credits for the work. But after some research, I found that credits mean nothing. I had just violated the copyright of these people!

There are some sources where you can get pictures which you can use freely. Some examples would be Wikimedia Commons, and Creative Commons Search. For stock photos, there is Sxc.hu and Everystockphoto. Sxc.hu is a great source by the way. Do you know any more sources?

This is why I am posting this. To ask you readers and bloggers a question. Where do you get your pictures for use on your blog? How do you proceed to use these pictures? Do you give credits? Do you link back? Something else? Please comment, and take some time to answer the following poll. Thanks!

We can’t go around without having a nice chit chat. Online, Instant Messaging has bridged this gap. Google it and these will be endless lists of services providing Instant Messaging services; some for free, others for a low price that we often call premium. Without doubt we must all have heard of MSN or Windows Live Messenger; the most used free service from Microsoft. Today I will try to pave a path from a simple to a more customised Live Messenger.

What you will need?:

1. Windows Live Messenger
2. A-Patch
3. Live Messenger Plus

If you don’t have a “passport.net” account head over there and signup for one. Remember you can use any email address for this purpose. Preferably, one from Google, Gmail will do.

After having downloaded Windows Live Messenger, which is a freeware, install it into your computer(s). This is quite easy, just follow the steps in the wizard. Now, you can sign in and start chatting right away!!! But will you be doing it? Perhaps yes, perhaps no. If you are reading this it must be out of curiosity or for satisfying your needs.

I will be proceeding with patching Windows Live Messenger first. Launch the downloaded patch (A-Patch) and you will be asked to tick what you will want to “power up” your “chat world”. Please note that we would be using windows live messenger 8.1 for our purpose. Personally I removed the ads as they were intruding. (I am not imposing). You can use your common sense and your requirements to tick they various possibilities available for customisation. You may like to play around with he nudge, remove the limit

I can now say we have a “cleaner” live messenger as you wanted it to be. If you have not yet downloaded Live Messenger Plus do so now. It allows us to extends Live Messenger 2 ways; plugins and skins. Plugins allowing us to add on more options and automating some processes. In addition you can code plugins to suits your specific needs. Quite handy? Skins gives you the opportunity to dress up Windows Live Messenger to your taste.

Here are some of my favourite plugins that you may like to try:

• Display Picture Changer – Allows you to have a “dynamic” like display picture. It scrolls through a set of picture and changes your display picture for a set time period.
• Linked Chats – Allows you to share what your are chatting with friends. It is a convenient way over the traditional copy and paste.
• LinkSaver – You often receive links from your contacts. Configure it to save them into a file directly. Thus, no need to ask again if you missed it or do not have history to revert to.
• ReduceMem -You can often witness the memory consumption of WLM, with ReduceMem you can reduce if many folds. I have not tested it well but it seems that it works miracles.

This is a small list but keep tuning I will write more. It is a post after months of no writing. Thanks for your readership. I am back.

We all want to be healthy. The well known quote will say “An apple a day keeps the doctor away” and some would say “practice sports”. Each and every being has their one definition of being healthy. But, when it concerns your little computer, we all speak the same language. That of ergonomics. read all »

I just published the AVG post, and check what I found in the ads just below the post!

Sometimes, Google can have humour too it seems!

Anybody want to buy a baby online? Lolz go to contextual advertising!

On the 17th April 2008, this was as quoted on Rapidshare News.

As every free user should have noticed, we are experimenting once again with the CAPTCHA system. The reason is that RapidShare is popular enough for people to create tools to download from RapidShare as a free user as if they were a premium user. This has a negative impact for our paying premium users, since they expect a fast download. On the other hand we are also experimenting with happy hours again. When our servers have enough spare bandwidth, we will make it easier for free users to download from RapidShare, knowing that this also makes it possible again to automatically download files with those tools. Right now the RapidShare Happy Hours will disable the download tickets and the captchas completely.

I think this is a quite good alternative. This morning itself I headed to rapidshare to rip some files off its server. The COOL  little cats didn’t let me pass the captcha test. :S At this time, I found the New Rapidshare Happy Hours and I Googled It.

It is good to know that at some point, we may download without having to wait and input captchas. We don’t know what the guys at Rapidshare have in reserve for us. My advice, keep posted in their News section.

This entry is specially for Abhi, and for others who do not know what a feed means and how it can be used. In the simplest terms, it is only used to get updates. What this means? Let’s say you love a particular web site and want to read what latest stuff has been published (only if the platform used supports feeds). A feed will allow you to have these latest contents directly without going to the URL. That means, you can have a common pool where you have all the updates of your favourite sites to “feed” on. The feeds can be in two formats Atom and RSS… read all »